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Distinction results in Success

Uniqueness is Key. 

‘Different is better’  (W. Wiedeking  – during his Turnaround Management of Porsche.)

The specificatiation of the "How" of every objective and measure taken is probably the most important management task.

Everything else can be delegated.

Egalitarian Commodity Thinking sooner or later leads every economy of companies and states into crisis.

Finance and accounting are important auxiliary functions. Yet, because numbers are always only the results of the essence of things, it cannot be their task to specify the essence of companies and offers in such a way that maximum success is achieved. 

What others do has no reason to be copied. Especially not precisely the way others do it. Customers and their needs are different because people and situations are different. They need to be served, and more appropriately than by others. Essence and meaning become recognisable and tangible through the 'Gestalt' of things.

Design means defining Gestalt

Perception matters. - Design as the most important management tool affects the experience of all human activities and results of an organisation.

This applies not only to the products and services offered, but also to everything what makes the organisation and its Being perceptible and tangible. 

‘One cannot not communicate.’  (Watzlawick)

The aesthetics of every perception have an effect on the subconscious via all the senses - and partly also on the conscious mind - regardless of whether the whole was consciously designed as a non-verbal complex of signs or whether parts of its emblematic nature remained unnoticed by their creators.

Power of Leitmotifs. 

Expressing the essence of something in a short formula of no more than five words is work. It takes time. Especially as the results should be jointly developed, understood and communicated by several people. 

The high value of this investment pays off in the sharpening of an organisation's own profile and the identification of everyone with the specific corporate culture thus defined as a self-image and the resulting external image. 

Guiding principles agreed upon have an optimising effect on the design of organisations, activities and results - above all on offers and their acceptance.

While Leitmotifs have this internal effect, they only have an external effect through their translation into daily practice. 

Their effect results from shaping the third party experiences of everything. Consequently, Leitmotifs must never be communicated verbally to the outside world. 

If, however, guiding principles were misunderstood or even abused as ‘slogans’ in advertising, they and related efforts would be weakened and robbed of their credibility. This is all the more true as not all of an organisation's actions immediately correspond to the desired practice and are therefore perceived as not perfect also by third parties. 

The goal of the guiding principles, on the other hand, is achieved when the words ‘come back’, being used by external observers, customers and other stakeholders as their own formulations about an organisation, its offers and its activities.

Competence Formula

What characterises companies and brands? What exactly distinguishes them from everything else? Expressing this special competence as a leitmotif and making it the basis for all actions and the image of a company was practised by the late brand designer Benno von Keysselitz with the management boards of companies such as BMW and later Audi. The concept of competence characterises the essence which, through identification with the formula, is increasingly perceived by all those involved as the external image of the realities thus created. 

Raison d'Être

Gerhard Eichweber has once again brought the basic ideas of projects to the point with the question of the reason for their existence: Why does the company or organisation exist? What is its essence, what makes it different? Why are procedures the way they are? Why do its products and services have to exist? Why - and how exactly - are its offers worth how much to whom? In addition to the specific competence, expressing the reason to exist as a short formula is a second step towards sharpening the common awareness of tasks and criteria in such a way that this agreement continues to have an effect beyond the direct cooperation within the team also in processes based on the division of tasks. The fact that such processes radiate within an organisation makes it easier to maintain the corporate culture and its continuity by 'corporate design'.

Value Design Methodology: Qualitative information as the key to more added value

The Value Design Methodology is based on the value analysis work plan according to VDI. Gerhard Eichweber laid the foundation of Value Consult with 'value analysis' and its application to completely new innovations as 'value engineering'.

His improving the method began with the addition of a ‘Phase Zero’, which precedes the value analysis work plan and its five phases: How do you even start a project? Why should limited resources be used for this, and how exactly must the result be in order to achieve maximum success and impact? 

Qualitative information: Key to Added Value

Thanks to 'value analysis' as the methodological backbone, holistic optimisation according to quantitative criteria is a self-evident result. However, the 'value' of the result, i.e. the margin or 'Value Added', depends on qualitative criteria. Thus, various steps of sharpening the awareness for the specification of the essence of a thing in order to tune it to specific target groups as a ‘toolbox’ of techniques for important perfection have turned 'Value Engineering' into the ‘Value Design’ methodology.