| Summary: | The impact of dominant design on innovative performance and the introduction of Design Driven Innovation are examples of the wide recognition of the strategic and crucial roles of design in boosting a firm’s competitiveness. This role has been changing and evolving beyond traditional design. However, despite this trend, it has been pointed out that the potential of design resources, including in-house designers, is often not sufficiently utilized in Japanese enterprises. It is reasonable to assume that this issue stems from visualization of design values. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop and verify standard key performance indicators that can evaluate the activities and outcomes of in-house design teams quantitatively. This may contribute to effective utilization of design resources. In the study, 465 managers from four large Japanese enterprises responded to a survey of multisource assessment of the performance of in-house designer teams. Principal component analysis revealed five important factors: product development capabilities, provision of information, brand consistency, output speed, and costs of evaluation of the performance of the design department. Multiple regression analysis indicated that the emphasis on KPIs for design departments differs among enterprises.
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