The Milano Design Week: Events, Operators, Business Models

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to discuss the case of Milan “Fuorisalone” (literally “outside the fair”) - now renamed Milano Design Week - as the result of a long-term transformation that led to its current configuration, characterised by a complex business model (Smith, Binns and Tushman, 2010), where many actors and stakeholders interact in a network of cooperation and competition. The paper highlights how this transformation was led by the design culture (Deserti and Rizzo, 2014; Concilio, Deserti and Rizzo, 2014) as a pervasive character of the city. The analysis of the case compares the Milano Design Week business model with the fair business model, focusing on the elements of differentiation and on the scaling up mechanisms. In addition, the comparative analysis provides lessons learnt on: - The ways of combining bottom up initiatives with the overall innovation strategies of the official fair and of the city; - The ways of building and managing the value chains in the field of CCI; - The effectiveness of the scaling up model of the Milano Design Week. Design/methodology/approach – Milano Design Week is presented as a business case study, with the aim of investigating how the multiple actors result in a constellation that coproduce value (Chesbrough and Rosembloom, 2002), representing and diffusing design culture outside its professional community in the larger context of the entire city. The authors conducted a field research, meeting and interviewing some of the actors, as well as a desk research, retrieving documentation on the historical aspects and on the more recent developments of the Milano Design Week. Originality/value – The construction of the Milano Design Week is discussed as a design-driven innovation (Verganti, 2010) and as a long-term strategic action conducted through the use of design thinking (Brown, 2009; Lockwood, 2009; Martin, 2009), that has led to an original business model based on the application of design knowledge and tools. Practical implications – The paper provides a better and detailed understanding of the working dynamics of specific and contextualised solutions for the Milano Design Week, explaining how they have been transferred and/or replicated in different contexts and what impacts they have had on the city.