Centor wins inaugural award for Business Model Design

Centor was honored to receive ‘Best Overall’ in Business Model Design at the 2015 Good Design Australia Awards.

Centor was honored to receive ‘Best Overall’ in Business Model Design at the 2015 Good Design Australia Awards.

Showcasing superior examples of design across a broad range of industries, the Good Design Awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious award for design and innovation. The introduction of the Business Model Design in this year's competition recognizes the importance of using design to create a business strategy. Now, with seven main categories and 25 sub-categories, the awards represent one of the most diverse range of submissions in the world.

Following a 15-month business design journey, Centor discovered their single defining goal – to connect people with the beautiful world outside. This led the company to courageously rethink their business model after six decades of success. By interviewing hundreds of people across the world and gaining insights from them, Centor identified their customer, designed a new strategy and new products and created a new channel to market.

The Judges commented, “Centor is a business that has positioned design at the very core of their business and is leveraging it as a key strategic tool. Centor is a true design-led business and worthy of recognition for this new award category. This Award category is about showcasing what design can do if used effectively and championed throughout the business, from the CEO down. Centor met and surpassed all the criteria for this category and the design dividends will pay off for years to come.”

Nigel Spork, Centor’s Managing Director, is thrilled with award: “Design Led Thinking has made a hugely positive impact on Centor. It has helped us to fundamentally reshape our business strategy and ensure that our Company Purpose is infused through everything we do.

We were able to clearly identify exactly who we could help as a potential customer, what sort of problems she had and we what we could do to delight her. It was seriously eye opening to see what an organizational difference it made when we shifted from thinking of customer as a demographic/geographic base to instead being able to describe a customer as a person.

By far the biggest benefit was strategic clarity. When we could see what we most wanted to do, we could completely align our people, processes and strategic resources to deliver something awesome. Instead of an organization torn between different goals, we could have everyone pulling together towards a common future. It removed mountains of conflict and debate and instead allowed us just to focus on something meaningful.”

“Centor is a business that has positioned design at the very core of their business and is leveraging it as a key strategic tool.”