Good Design is Indeed GOOD BUSINESS

WITH FIVE PERCENT of the office‐furniture market, Howe Furniture Corporation clearly valued design as an element of its strategy. As competition mounted in the mid‐1980s, however, it was clearly time to challenge the status quo. Here, Howe President Eric Smith reveals how and why his company successfully recommitted itself to design excellence in a transition that, with some painful moments, transformed the firm's approaches to marketing, technology, production, and the nature of the design process itself