Design more profit

Tangible results: Alex Ritchie and Robbie Robertson, E2 founders

When experiential design company E2 sits down with a new client, design is not on the agenda.

For founders Robbie Robertson and Alex Ritchie design may be the final product, but it is a secondary result that falls out of the process of talking to the client.

Sydney-based E2 managing director Robertson has two masters degrees, one in business and one in design. Creative director Ritchie has a masters in architecture. They talk the talk of designers, describing the look, feel and smell of a brand.

But at the end of the day, they are focused on the return of capital both for their company and clients.

“We start the process with an audit of the business to understand how it interacts with its clients, its business strategies and the strength of its competitors and sector trends, staffing and training and the journey that a customer takes before finally engaging with and purchasing product from the client,” Robertson says. “The process allows the client to view the brand through the customers’ eyes.”

The procedure requires engagement from both sides. For E2 it means getting to understand the business model of the client, even if it’s a big corporation such as Qantas or Vodafone.

For the client it means embracing the process from the chief executive down to give the design company the input required to create unique, cultural and, hopefully, profitable change.

From the initial audit, E2 incorporates key performance indicators into the process so that the client can track progress and outcomes through each subsequent stage and continue to track results after project completion.

The procedure to design a $10 million centre of service excellence facility for Qantas took 12 months from start to finish. The design concept for a revolutionary branch office for Commonwealth Bank of Australia took five months and both projects took a leap of faith on the part of the client to accept that real change would emerge.

“Some clients want to immediately choose the design elements, and we say ‘no, you have to do the planning first’. There may be a point where they say it’s too hard, but we take them through the process and there is a light-bulb moment when they say ‘can you do that for our brand?’,” Robertson says.

E2 has been in business for three years and this year made it on to the BRW Fast Starters list. But it has not all been upward momentum.

In the depth of the financial crisis in October 2008, the business was losing contracted work. The hatches were battened down for six months and half the staff were let go.

In May last year, confidence returned and hiring started again.

Robertson says the Sydney team of 19 staff is now the right size to keep a boutique feel but with the ability to take on any job presented. Growth will centre on creating hubs of excellence with the six-month-old Melbourne and Singapore offices to be expanded to the same size as Sydney.

As financial conditions improve internationally, new offices in London and Abu Dhabi will also be planned.

Ritchie says E2’s experiential design approach, with a focus on traceable returns on equity, has given the company its niche. Although Sydney alone has hundreds of design firms, he considers only four of them competitors, and even then he says the competition specialises in specific areas such as design graphics or interior design.

The final concept plan of an E2 design will incorporate degrees of all five senses – touch, hearing, sight, taste and smell.

For a brand such as global mining house BHP Billiton, the touch and feel of its brand would play an important part of overall brand concept and design and smell could add interest. But you would probably “dial down” taste in the concept, Ritchie says.

The interaction with the senses would also vary across the journey of the customer. For instance, at an airline check-in it should be about speed and charm. At the security gate it would simply be about speed, but at the airport lounge it is time to relax, so the focus changes to charm and style. Materials used at each point of the journey would reflect not just the engagement of the senses, but also the corporate culture, history and strategic direction.

For Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ralph Norris, it probably involved more management time than he initially would have envisaged when E2 was appointed to create a “branch of the future”.

However, he was reportedly pleased with the result, and CBA branches across Australia are incorporating aspects of the design.

BRW

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