The workshops held under the programme, he emphasises, will especially benefit corporate managers, design engineers, entrepreneurs, professional designers and middle level industry executives. The faculty members for the workshop, he says, would be professionals from within the country and abroad.

Dr Koshy expresses his concern that a country as rich in creative talent and resources as India needs to import design from foreign sources, the necessity for creating legislation on design and the importance other countries give to design.

Statistics reveal that while design typically represents the smallest actual cost element in products, it leverages the largest cost influence. "In a competitive environment, design can not only help in a smooth transition from protection to competition, it can also help the Indian industry develop its own global brands," says Dr Koshy.

Besides that, not only can it achieve quality through design, it can also earn what may be termed as `premium' via design. This premium can be earned by value addition through design and product development that would work as the main differentiating factors in ensuring strong positioning, price, premium and also predominance in the marketplace.

In design teaching and practice for commerce, industry and other allied sectors, NID has emerged as a powerhouse for design dissemination today.

That is why it is going to offer Indian industry a series of programmes on `Design and Product Strategies for Increasing Premium'. These programmes will be held in Ahmedabad, Delhi and Bangalore. Under the programme, the institute will offer Sunday to Sunday workshops in 16 different focus areas of design. The workshop series is aimed at corporate managers, design engineers, entrepreneurs, professional designers and middle level industry executives. According to Dr Koshy, these workshops will expose the participants to the process of translating innovative ideas into commercially successful designs and then developing them into marketable products for different segments.

The workshop will also help them understand the process as a synthesis of ideation, assessment, manufacture, prototyping, product development and consolidation, adds Dr Koshy. At the end of each workshop, the participants will be able to apply the design process to evaluate their own market trends and, above all, such features as premium capability. Not only that, it might as well open up an entirely new career for them in the knowledge economy, where design has become the driver.

NID's open and lavishly green campus will also provide them a unique opportunity to lean how a multi-disciplinary system can help develop an integrated approach towards evolving design solutions. In a nutshell, it will enable them develop a deeper understanding of design as a powerful tool in the arsenal of competitive advantage while formulating their own design strategies to compete in the global marketplace.