Charlotte Rønhof, DI: Hvad kan design gøre for danske virksomheders konkurrenceevne?

My name is Charlotte Rønhoff and I am the Deputy Director of Danish Industry. I work with the political areas of research, innovation, design policy, education policy and diversity policy. And as Christian just said, I have the pleasure of being a member of the Board of Directors of DDC. And as I said, we are one of the initiators behind the investigation into how design creates value for businesses. And of course, as Christian has already indicated, we are an advanced design application, which is very important for many of our businesses. It is one of the methods that we also see to become more competitive. And fortunately, there are many businesses that already use design in one form or another, one might say. But it is also our impression that there is a fairly large, one might almost say, unsolved growth potential out there, many businesses that could have a lot of experience in using design. And for that use, if we as Gord have the ambition to have even more of us take the design tools on board, come higher up on the design ladder, then we actually need to gain more knowledge, and perhaps even updated knowledge, about the use of design in businesses. Now the time is running out, so we do not have time to dwell, but I will try to come back. I will say very briefly a little about Danish industry. And then I will say a little about, I think it will be very funny, because we have a mixed box today, also to say a little about what the industry's big challenges are today. Why we are interested in design, a little about how we can see how businesses use design today, how we work with it ourselves, and especially what we would like to have out of the survey. I have already made a statement here, and it is not very different, because Christian will be out of it, so far so good. Our vision in Danish industry is to have an open and well-off society in growth and balance. And the goal is also, the vision is that Denmark should be the world's most attractive country to run a business in. We usually say work in and out of, because there are so many businesses, many of our members work completely globally. And you can say open. What it means for us is that we are a society where goods and services, as they so beautifully call it in EU language, and not least people, can move freely across borders. So it supports the competitiveness in Denmark. And balance means especially that there should also be a connection between how much money we earn in Denmark, and how we use the money. So something like an effective public sector, we are perhaps not completely unnatural, and have a pretty big impact on in that. Our mission, what we feel we are in the world for, is to help businesses to win. And what we always think we could do really well, and even more effectively under our skin, is that when businesses in Denmark win, we actually all win together. And that, to try to help businesses win, is also where we come under design. Because it is one of the parameters where we think it will lift the value and growth of many businesses. Just very briefly, how does Danish Industry share its members? There are many, and many in what we call the production industry. It is a more classic industry, but we actually represent members of a very broad industry. And they all use design, but they also use it a little differently. So there are also some industry views that we hope the survey could also reveal, and that we could become a little smarter at that. If you look at how big our member-states are, then you have to say that we are not an unnatural mirror of the way the Danish business structure looks. A lot of what we usually call small and medium-sized businesses, and also some who say small businesses, but that is Denmark, when you look at the Danish business landscape, then the large businesses in terms of numbers do not fill as much as the small ones. And that is also a special challenge when it comes to getting more to use design, because we actually have to deal with so many, even smaller, businesses. Let's take a look at what it is, and of course it is not an exhaustive list in any way, what the challenges of the industry are today. Then you have to say, a classic, but not the least serious challenge for businesses in Denmark, is that the rest are animals that run businesses in Denmark. That is because we have high salaries, and we have a fairly high cost-benefit level. And that is also something that is the background for, not only, but part of the background for the fact that we have seen a fairly severe outsourcing of tasks in Denmark in recent years. Not only because companies have put out tasks, but that is also why many have put out tasks. And if you have to defend and compete here in Denmark, then it is even more important that we put value into our products. That is the only way we can compete. And something that is responsible for this is of course research and innovation, and that is also why we are so involved in this and go so far into the fact that there are reasonable framework conditions for the research and innovation area. But increased use of design is also an important instrument to ensure that businesses can become among the most competitive. Then there is the so-called fourth industrial revolution, which is being taken up by many of our members at the moment. And many are involved in the concept of disruption. We will get back to that in a moment. But all of this actually poses very big demands for the company's ability to adapt. And if we just dwell a little on disruption, then one must say that there is nothing new about new technology competing with old technology. You can just look out the window or where you look at your mobile phone. It has been a driving force for many years. But there is really great pressure on the company in relation to the, one can almost say, rocket speed it is going with at the moment. And that is part of what you experience as disruption. It is simply going very fast. And another element is this with the fact that technologies are converging. And we are all connected to our phones and computers. And it was not for a long time that everything we have at home comes to talk to the other devices and so on. So all this with the technology converging, it opens up both, it is both challenging for many businesses, but it is of course also important that you see it as an opportunity. Where is it? How can you exploit it so that it can become a competitive advantage for your own business? And it is clear that something where you can win as a business is of course by being completely ahead of new research, new technologies, but also again on design. We have asked here quite recently in our business panel, which is administrative directors, looking broadly out in the group of members, about their view on disruption. And I actually think it was worth taking part here, because it is in some ways, in some ways also a scary result, because actually more than half of the companies that have answered here, have no or very low focus on disruption. You can well be a little worried about that on the company's own behalf, and so it is also on your own behalf as a citizen in this country. There are only 10% of performance companies that have a lot or high focus. 20% of service companies, so they are actually higher. More service companies that are paying attention to it. And they are perhaps also some of those who have experienced it quite violently in recent years. We think of Netflix, Airbnb, and so on and so forth. But then there is still a fourth part who have experienced it in their business, or experienced the competitors have moved faster and more frighteningly faster than they themselves have. And quite a few expect us that something will happen with their, that is, on their business field, one might say. And this slide that I could almost feel, because I was sitting in the pleasure of sitting a little longer in the room, you probably can't see anything at all, but it is actually just to show you a picture of that there is a development also in the perception of disruption, because there are more and more who are starting to experience disruption. Who has experienced it in the last five years? How much do you expect to experience in the coming years? There is just a slight development. And this is a phenomenon that fortunately, one can almost say, that more and more are becoming aware of. So it is also interesting, because then we ask, where do we expect it to come from? And there are a lot of people, and the majority, both within the production and service, who think that it is something that comes from outside. It is something that the foreign countries will suddenly surprise us with, this development. And then you could well hope that there were more who said, that it is of course something we ourselves do, but it is in high degree a expectation that it is something that comes from outside. Then we have also asked, yes, it was just the same as I said before, how high degree is the focus area in the company? There are not so many who do, but what we have concluded, both for this one and earlier, is that what is in high degree missing in Denmark is digital focus. We have asked for this, and we have also asked for this in other contexts. And this is in fact the background for us here, yes, just before the new year, in the fall, we launched a digitalization effort in DI, which is something that is missing from what we did about productivity. We put it on the agenda, broadly, on the road, around the house, with this digital task force, we have put down a business panel of top leaders, resource people, and have such a limited period, where we simply try to dig forward, and we are in reality especially to talk to the members themselves. So it is a kind of awakening campaign, just like we did about productivity, and to get even more members to open their eyes to the importance of the relationship to digitalization. As Christian Korth was mentioning, to get a little closer to the surveys, then a number of surveys have been carried out throughout the time on the design area. We completed our first, and I can say for the time being, only survey on design, back in 2003. And at that time, we saw that 3 out of 10 companies had a design strategy, and there were an additional 40% who also considered getting a design strategy. And it also showed, and we can no longer see it from here, that the company especially thought about product design and industrial design. And since then, a number of surveys have been carried out, and some of the things that have been a little more interesting, is the design ladder that DTC has developed. It can be completely brand, because you can see we have the design ladder here. But the last one, we could see from 2007, so you can probably say it is in and out a few years ago. But what is super exciting about doing something like the design ladder, and following it for over a year, is that we can see a development. And you can also say, fortunately, that it has also progressed, but it has actually been very, very useful. As Christian also briefly indicated, we also work with design policy in the way that we also have a choice in the Danish industry. We have that far from all areas, so it is really something we have prioritized when we have put down a complete choice to work with design. And Michael Rasmussen, who you are pleased to know, is actually the chairman of the selection. And of course, we also deal with everything that depends on whether you could start with the design, whether you could go beyond the box of something called design policy. But just briefly, what we have used most of the last year was about competencies. Do we educate the right people within the design area in Denmark? Do we educate those we need? Do we educate too many in some areas? And of course, this is connected with the fact that the government, the previous government, focused on the need to dimension the education. And the artistic education was taken as such a special area, so we have used some forces on that. And what we have used and have already started on this year is to look at design as a competitive parameter. And it is also in that context that we have thought, well, we actually need to have a more solid foundation to stand on. So what we would like to bring out of the design survey, just to round off here, is some updated knowledge about the design. About the use of design in companies. Also really like some cases, one could almost say, so something like hands-on, what are the companies doing that are doing the best, and how do you do it when you get the most out of it? Because we just know from experience that it is something that can lift a lot of companies to use design. Also especially if there are barriers, because if I have to be completely honest, and in the time I have dealt with this area, we have talked a lot about it. So therefore it can well happen in between that there are not more, you could almost say, free, so why is it that we have not been able to avoid even more, why is the gap not there? And it is perhaps also because it has been some time since we have carried out the survey. It could also be that the reality is much better than we think, and I think that is how you can be surprised. And finally, and we will put a lot of emphasis on that, I hope that Christian agrees, but especially that the results, the results we get out of it, maybe not from the survey itself, but that we can use it afterwards to create some tools, so that it can be quite user-oriented for the companies and for our members. That was what I wanted to say. Thank you.