The Design Business Association exists to promote professional excellence through productive partnerships between commerce and the design industry to champion effective design which improves the quality of people's lives.

The DBA's Wheel of Action

The DBA's 'Wheel of Action' gives an overview of our key drivers. The Wheel aims to encapsulate the direction the DBA is taking.

At the heart of what we stand for is effective design.

We have three major drivers:

• Bringing Business to Design
• Bringing Design to Business
• Bringing Design to Government

How will we deliver this? The outer wheel shows we have a number of sources to tap into, to learn from, to connect to and to service. Our membership - the design businesses - is central to this.

Strategic thrusts for the DBA

Our big focus is to build the performance and improve the prosperity of design agencies - of your business. This programme sees an extension of the tangible offer such as the salary surveys, the performance ratios, the business helpline and the legal advice to a broader and bolder 'design consultancy diagnostic tool'.

This programme will also see an extension of the DBA Training courses and workshops which inspire you and your teams and lead to more potential for client contact.

Bringing Design to Business
This is about demonstrating the benefit of effective design as an integral part of your client's business mix. You will see how the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards has been repositioned to be far more business focused. There is a greater emphasis on outward communications of the value of design to the press that your clients read. You will see programmes of activities which offer greater opportunities to educate and inspire your clients.

Why are we doing this? Because the better educated and informed your clients are the more they will respect, invest in and value design and the impact it can have on their business performance.

Bringing Design to Government
Building our programme of activities in the public sector as well as on the international stage is important to many DBA members and to the industry as a whole. We have a raft of activities to share with members throughout the year.