South Australia's Design Services Sector
Economic development with an export focus
- a project supported by the Department of State Development
南澳州 为生活而设计 English Version
Help us to promote the world leading advantages of South Australia's design sector.
Resources for increasing the design sector profile
This page provides links to context material and practical tools relating to our three economic development projects - The Trade Mission and exporting, the material developed during the 90 Day project, the government's creative economy strategy and clustering. Feel free to email us with any resources we can add here that you feel would help the sector.
Market Research and Information Resources for new exporters:
General
Shandong market overview by the Australia China Development Company.
China Engagement Strategy for South Australia co-developed by the Australia China Business Council.
The China Business Network of SA also provides event and functions for developing relationships with China.
Western Adelaide China Business strategy provides some useful cultural insights too.
Pocket Guide to doing business in China by McKinsey, China Beyond - Change and Continuity by Ogilvy and Mather and Wealth Report by Hurun provide further perspectives.
Architecture and design
South Australian specific research was undertaken for the 90 Day project and is captured below. You will also glean useful insights from Danish and Western Australian research and this AIA article.
Services for small business
The line up at a recent event by the Office of the Small Business Commissioner highlights a long list of service providers to help you think about exporting.
Austrade and the China Desk in state government are also useful places to start, including this intern program.
Many of these resources highlight the aspirations of a growing middle class in China. The O&M report highlights that livability factors attract people to cities at the tier two, three and four levels. The main factors that contribute to desirability include less pollution, relaxed lifestyle (sense of community), low living costs and good security. The Trade mission will be an opportunity to test the narrative that South Australia is a good trade partner from which to source liveability services.
Results from 2014 "exporting architectural services" 90 Day Project:
The 90 Day project looked at equipping architecture firms to export services to China, particularly in response to the enormous growth in second and third tier chinese cities. A number of studies (including this) assert that demand in Asian economies for services will expand with the burgeoning middle class – from around 500 million today to 3.2billion people by 2030. The recent Free Trade Agreement with China is meant to exploit this trend.
The 90 Day project surveyed architectural firms - Survey results - SA September 2014
This infographic captures the results of national and local research - Infographic - exports to China
And a short discussion paper was prepared for the workshop: Architecture Services and China Markets
The workshop developed ideas around four themes: Brand and presence, showcasing our talent; Shandong, developing long term relationships; Leading edge, working to our strengths using our universities; Design city, a local showcase and experiential learning.
The final report makes six inter-related recommendations:
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Focus on design services Build an understanding of SA architectural services as design generalists. In this role they integrate a diverse range of activities that contribute to a cohesive liveability product. The liveability product includes buildings, but is more focused on successful environments for fulfilling the social, cultural and economic functions of cities.
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Liveability clustering to build industry, government and academic links that enable an exportable liveability product to be developed and constantly improved.
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Target and focus on Shandong and particularly the city of Qingdao and focus on providing design services to health and aged care.
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Doing business in our own backyard by providing opportunities to introduce investors in South Australian building developments to local architecture and design service professionals.
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Export capability building by providing export education, cultural training, introducing students to service export strategies and developing collaboration and knowledge skills.
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Explore other markets than China by pin-pointing those markets that have similar constraints to South Australia and those that are investing in South Australia.
The role of the design sector in a creative economy
A creative economy strategy provides an excellent opportunity to raise the profile of the design services sector. Knowledge work, education and skills have long been recognised as sources of economic development. Recently entrepreneurship and innovation have been the darlings of economic theory. (Manufacturing may be in decline but it still generates 2-5 jobs in the economy for every manufacturing job and the value in manufacturing is increasingly in creative tasks such as prior to production in design and R&D and post production in marketing and after sales service.). Goran Roos' work for South Australia argues that we can support our local businesses with regulatory and purchasing practices that encourage world class approaches.
The discussion in now shifting to the second machine age and the importance of creative skills. An Australian report into the creative industries calculates that jobs in architecture generate a further 3.5 jobs in the economy. This recent paper analyses the US labour statistics and concludes that low skill jobs are in a race against computerisation as even cognitive tasks can be automated. The two key skills of the future are creative intelligence and social intelligence. A creative workforce is made up of specialist creatives and support workers in creative industries (ie many design based businesses) plus 'embedded creatives' in other industries. Another suite of measures is used by Charles Landry in his work on Adelaide's performance in the creative city index.
A report by NESTA in the UK classified creative occupations by the following criteria:
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Are novel processes involved?
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Is there a lack of mechanical substitutes for the work?
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Is the work non-repetitive and non-uniform?
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Is the work creative no matter the context?
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Does the work involve interpretation, not merely transformation – does it require the creation of novel outputs?
One of the ways the design sector can add value to the government's work on a creative economy is by providing real, design-based, examples of the economic theories discussed above in action.
Clustering and how it can benefit the design sector:
The most prominent champions for clustering in South Australia recently have been Orjan Solvell and Ifor Ffowcs-Williams. Europe has invested heavily in cluster development because. “Clusters are powerful engines of economic development and drivers of innovation in the European Union. They provide a fertile business environment for companies, especially SMEs, to collaborate with research institutions, suppliers, customers and competitors located in the same geographical area”."
While clustering may happen naturally as firms co-locate around a customer base or a resource, the collaborative element is the key to benefits as multiple businesses achieve economic outcomes that could not be achieved by individual businesses alone. For this reason we are looking beyond naturally occuring or supply chain clusters and toward deliberate cluster development initiatives and opportunities for smart specialisation. The AIA already has an example of a deliberate attempt to work together through its coopertition network and the western region is proposing to develop an export club to network businesses that could learn from each other.
The Premier's economic priorities are supported by all of the activies above and clustering, in particular, is intended to support economic priority 6, "growth through innovation".
We will be investigating opportunities that go beyond networking, toward the development of shared business opportunities and the pursuit of innovative outcomes. The development of clusters can require a significant period with many successful regions growing from decades of cooperative work.
This project seeks to build some foundations for further cluster development. It will identify potential clusters within the design community and involving a cross-disciplinary approach. The first step is to nominate areas within which we can excel and strengthen a potential competitive advantage.