Focus on profits through design

New Zealand companies need to place more emphasis on design to increase their profits, Christchurch product designer Nigel Sharplin says.

Sharplin, who owns product design firm InFact, said New Zealand could not rely on exporting masses of milk or logs forever.

It had to add value to those commodities and the only way to do that was through design, he said.

Many companies were looking at increasing their bottom line profit through reducing costs, but it was inherently a design problem with their product or service, he said.

"It requires a new way of thinking."

Skellerup was a good example of how using design had added value to its business, Sharplin said.

InFact was engaged to help Skellerup design the Quatro gumboot. The gumboot sells for $160 and uses the same amount of rubber as Skellerup's Red Band gumboots which sell for $75.

"They can't make enough of them. That's what design does," Sharplin said.

The Quatro boots had been popular because they were as comfortable as a shoe, he said.

InFact was set up by Sharplin 11 years ago after he moved back to Christchurch after a stint running a design company in London.

The company has just won an international design award for its work in designing a shipping container scanner for AgResearch.

The Red Dot awards attracted 2700 entries worldwide and InFact won one of 206 awards. InFact was now in the running for one of the top 15 Red Dot awards to be announced in Singapore in November.

The award would help lift New Zealand's reputation when it came to design, Sharplin said.

New Zealand's productivity and product quality had been well known for some time, but New Zealand was now being recognised as a place that generated good design, he said.

At its peak two years ago InFact employed 30 staff but it has since downsized to 13 as the recession has caused companies to reduce the amount of research and development they were doing.

However, business was looking up and Sharplin believed there were more potential opportunities now than two years ago.

- © Fairfax NZ News