The design team at Virgin Atlantic Airways manages many aspects of design for the airline, including interiors, service concepts, uniforms and airport lounge architecture
Virgin Atlantic’s product and service group also includes two heads of product - one responsible for the design of the company’s Economy and Premium Economy classes, the other for Upper Class - and a head of Clubhouses, all operating at the same level as Joe Ferry, Head of Design and Service Design at Virgin Atlantic.
Design is considered to be a key competitive differentiator at Virgin Atlantic and (awaiting the appointment of a Director of product and service) Ferry currently reports directly to the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Virgin Atlantic has what Ferry describes as a ‘very flat structure’ and both the COO and CEO are ‘design literate and very supportive of innovation.’ This senior management buy-in is deemed very important: ‘if we didn’t have those two it would be a completely different story,’ says Ferry, who also mentions the design team’s alliances with key figures like the Head of Brand.
Perhaps because of this, the pressure on the design team to succeed is quite strong within the company, says Ferry, noting that, ‘you expect oil prices to go up, you expect occasional problems from external forces, but nobody expects us to deliver bad design, ever.’
Ferry says that strenuous effort over recent years – not only in developing relationships but also in communicating the value of design across the organisation – has given design ‘a level of respect within the company.’ The process has been difficult but effective, he notes, citing design’s relationship with Virgin Atlantic’s engineering function as a strong example of this success.
By working extremely closely with Engineering, he says, the latter department will voluntarily seek design input if a product needs to be altered or updated but now knows when ‘not to meddle.’ Ferry adds that designers at Virgin Atlantic need to develop flexible communication skills to suit their wide range of audiences, which include both manufacturers and senior management.
Historical successes have also helped the wider organisation understand the value of design, with the company’s Upper Class Suite being a strong example. The introduction of the radical seating design and configuration in Virgin Atlantic Airways business class is credited with giving Virgin Atlantic Airways a two per cent increase in market share, worth some £50 million annually. Intellectual property developed during the design of the Upper Class Suite has also been licensed to other organisations, turning Virgin Atlantic Airways design department into a direct source of revenue for the first time.
Service design is the newest function to be integrated into the department. Virgin Atlantic Airways service design team is responsible for developing all aspects of the customer service experience and for ensuring that customer-facing staff throughout the organisation adopt and follow the correct procedures.
Service design uses a different skill set from the other design specialities and, while the management of the function comes from a conventional design background, Virgin Atlantic Airways has additionally recruited people with a cabin service background to staff the team.
The implementation of service design is also rather different from other areas of the design team’s responsibility. Changes to service practice have implications for the job design of cabin crew and must, as a result, be handled with care and sensitivity. The Virgin Atlantic service design team works with the company’s crew management as well as with its human resources department and with its training arm to ensure that new offerings are accepted, integrated and delivered successfully.
Virgin Atlantic prides itself on having a low staff turnover within its design department. This is achieved despite the department’s relatively small size and flat management structure limiting the opportunities for staff progression. Instead, says Ferry, capability building efforts concentrate on educating designers in a broad range of specialisms. The wider company also runs general management training programmes, in which designers may participate.
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The cross-functional sharing of ideas is strongly encouraged at Virgin Atlantic. Co-location of the designers helps with this, but formal meetings every six weeks allow all designers to share their current work, providing ‘inspirational cross over and stimulation,’ says Ferry.
Individual development within the team is formalised, with designers agreeing annual objectives with their managers and a link between pay and the achievement of those objectives. As well as direct project responsibilities, these objectives will include R&D and innovation activities.