Don't be a dinosaur!

Can we head off the inevitable? - Or what can the design industry learn from Thomas Cook?

The collapse of Thomas Cook, and the changes in the travel industry that may have led to the failure have added a piquancy to my recent thinking on the future of my own industry, and how we might adapt to survive.

Can you see change coming, or does it arrive like a meteor?

In the case of Thomas Cook, the causes for the collapse seem to be being quoted as increased online competition from sites such as; Trivago, Booking.com, Expedia, new business models such as Air BnB, rising costs, a warm British summer, exchange rates and of course, Brexit.

My personal observation is that aside from the weather and exchange rate changes (which have presumably been key variables for all of the time Thomas Cook has been in business), none of these things arrived overnight - they have been out there for some years, and yet Thomas Cook appears to have been unable to change its business model to meet these challenges.

Even if you can see change coming, is it always possible to adapt and change in time?

With its expensive management skills, human and financial resources and long experience in the industry (one that has faced many significant changes over the last 100 years), it seems that Thomas Cook were unable or unwilling to adapt.

They may have had the best management possible, the experience, a huge presence in their market and been a familiar and trusted brand, but it was obviously a big and lumbering organisation that was difficult to redirect and change in response to the world around it and so perhaps failure was inevitable.

Design companies are generally small and have none of the monolithic problems of an organisation the size of Thomas Cook, but from where I am standing, it can be just a challenging for us to see change coming, identify the potential impacts on my business, decide on any necessary changes and implement them before the next big change appears over the horizon!

So, are there lessons for the design industry from the world of travel?

The design industry has been facing challenges and changes to our business environment and ways of working continually over the last 30 years, and these have been noticeably increasing in speed, frequency and size over recent years. 

Perhaps the most significant long-term agent for change has been the Mac and Adobe Creative Suite - they have undoubtedly revolutionised productivity, opened the doors to different forms of design and democratised the role of a designer, enabling many thousands of students to complete their design training and then set up on their own as a micro design business. In my view, this has produced a significant over-supply of both qualified and non-qualified designers, all competing for a finite amount of design work, or trying to enter a work environment that does not have the capacity to absorb them.

A direct consequence of this over-supply of design is a downward pressure on prices, a rise in the level of free-pitch requests, unpaid internships and the growth of ‘design market places’ such as 99designs and Fiverr.

I can’t be the only principal of a design company to observe these changes, and we may all wish that this wasn’t the case, and hope that we carry on as we always have and somehow continue to be relevant and profitable as the world changes around us, but I think that Thomas Cook shows us the folly of that approach.

Running a design business in the face of these changes is a growing challenge that many struggle to meet, and I believe that this is all contributing to the increasing specialisation of design services, as agencies and consultants look for a niche that offers both reduced competition and better revenue.

It feels like the days of the broad-service based design company are over, but which of those specialisations is going to produce the best work and the best return? - is it UX, UI, AR, 3D, Digital design generally, Service design, Branding and brand design or any of the other sub-specialisms? And how quickly can you recruit and/or train designers to become the best in them?

I’m not sure that I know the answer, but one thing is clear, staying the same and hoping for the best doesn’t end well.

I'd welcome your comments and thoughts!