Do you want to build up your company’s design capabilities? Get a grant to develop and integrate design strategies into your business processes.

Higher funding support for enterprises to develop capabilities during the economic downturn. Find out more about the changes.

For who?

• All Singapore-registered or incorporated businesses and companies.
  
  
• Design Engage is for enterprises that understand the value of design and are ready to invest resources to build up their design capabilities. Your business will be assessed based on design readiness - how ready you are to adopt design strategies.

For what?

• To help design-ready companies build up their design capabilities and incorporate strategic thinking into their business processes and strategies through:
  
  

  DISCOVER	Design Engage Awareness Workshops to gain a basic understanding of design and design thinking.
  DEVELOP (Phase 1)	Design Strategy Integration to help design-ready businesses assess their business strategies using key design principles and methods. Guided by Design Facilitators*, your company will gain a deeper understanding of the role of design in your business, and develop design strategies and tools to help open new business opportunities.
  DO (Phase 2)	Project Implementation to create new/improved products, processes or services with the design strategies and recommendations developed during Phase 1.

  
  *Design Facilitators are teams of experts well-versed in both design and business management. They offer guidance and expertise on the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ design can be adopted strategically in your business operations. They can also play a facilitating role between your business and your designers/design agencies.

See:	Appointed Design Facilitators

How much?

• You can get funding for Phase 1 and Phase 2:
  
  

  DEVELOP (Phase 1)	Up to 70% of the Design Facilitators’ fees.
  DO (Phase 2)	Up to 70% of qualifying costs to implement your design project. Qualifying costs include: • manpower-related costs • professional services • equipment, materials, consumable goods and software • acquisition of intellectual property (IP) rights (e.g. Registered Trademark and Registered Design) • technical support services (e.g. testing and certification)

Things to note

• Before participating in the programme, you must be prepared to:
  
  
  • invest resources in the mid to long term
    
    
  • commit to sustaining the outcomes that result from adopting strategic business design
    
    
  • commit to building design capabilities as part of your overall business strategy
    
    
  • adopt a new mindset
    
    
• In Phase 1, you must send a minimum of 3 key employees with different disciplines/roles to meet Design Facilitators over a minimum period of 3 days over a period of 1–3 months.
  
  
• Phase 1 is a pre-requisite for Phase 2. However, approval for Phase 1 does not automatically grant you approval for Phase 2 funding.
  
  
• All design projects must be carried out in Singapore.

Background

• The Design Engage Programme is part of the 3-year S$12 million Design for Enterprises initiative launched on 26 November 2008 jointly developed by DesignSingapore Council, SPRING Singapore and International Enterprises (IE) Singapore.
  
  
• The 3 key programmes under Design for Enterprises are Design Touch, Design Engage and Design Excel.
  
  These programmes help Singapore-based enterprises progress through various levels of design capabilities: from learning about the value of design to the integration of design into business strategies.

Changes from 1 February 2009 – 31 January 2010

• Design Engage Programme is part of BUILD (Business Upgrading Initiatives for Long-Term Development) which helps businesses to strengthen their capabilities during the downturn for future growth.
  
  
• BUILD provides higher funding support to SMEs for all existing SPRING Singapore's capability development programmes. This applies to applications received between 1 February 2009 and 31 January 2010.

	Existing	Revised
Funding support for enterprise-level projects	Up to 50% of qualifying costs	Up to 70% of qualifying costs

For more info

Design Engage Programme
Design for Enterprises Centre