South Australia's Design Services Sector

Read the Draft report and determine what comes next

 

Click to download the report from Sustain SA.

 

At this stage the report makes recommendations to the sector but the sector needs to confirm its priorities and make its own recommendations to the Department for State Development.

 

The report concludes that the sector would benefit from a long term partnership approach, working together across different disciplines and building a long term two-way relationship with Shandong Province:

"Conclusion 1: Involvement in Shandong Province, China, is best seen as a long-term commitment to developing a two-way partnership. A whole-of-sector approach has merit and will require the commitment of Design sector leadership to develop a consistent approach"

 

Economic development needs to be seen as a journey for the sector, one that has really only just begun:

"Conclusion 2: The economic development focus of the Design sector will require further resourcing and commitments to move to a stable structure and strategy that can sustain effort and sectoral coordination."

 

A design sector alliance, loosely based on the successful Water Industry Alliance should be developed to sustain effort:

"Conclusion 3: The strength of the sector’s approach to its economic development will be in attracting excellent partners and willing participants. The sector needs to develop a model that will support its alliance to generate both broad conversations with diverse stakeholders and specific opportunities."

 

The report goes on to make recommendations to the sector about how to develop a coherent approach to tackling its opportunities to expand the business horizon for the sector. "Sustain SA has recommended the Design sector leaders focus on initiating action in four key areas in order to maintain the commitment of working together to expand the sector’s commercial opportunities, and includes:

1) Develop the governance structure (MOU, TOR, strategic plan) and an alliance model to enable the Design sector to jointly pursue an economic development agenda;
2) Seek support from State Government for coordination of resources to advance economic development opportunities;
3) Create opportunities for members and Design sector leaders to self-nominate for tasks; and
4) Prepare for the Shandong return visit in September 2015 and ensure ability to respond to other opportunities."

 

You can contribute to the next steps (taken from the Next Steps section of the report which starts on page 27) by filling in the survey below or going to the link: