Innovation, design and branding – these keywords define an important part of the path to leadership in today's rapidly changing markets. Design management is creative management. A key component of marketing, it brings together the creative and productive elements of a company and gives them a direction. And it gives a company a face, a recognition factor, which it projects to the outside world. Design management is what makes a company distinctive and unique – and thus supports the development of a company’s brand image.

In positioning a company, effective branding is indispensable. This is also true, and particularly so, for small and medium-sized enterprises. Unlike large companies, SMEs can't afford large advertising budgets to support their branding. Here, other tools come into their own.

This primarily includes a focus on unique selling propositions such as independent product design, quality and product benefits. This focus is supported on the input side by trend-scouting and market surveys; on the output side, through sales promotion concepts and effective public relations – always based on unique products.