Achilles Design and Studio Dott are two names synonymous with excellence in the design world. The two companies joined forces and merged to form, the name is temporary and sounds rather familiar - Dott Achilles. Partners Pieter Lesage and Jürgen Oskamp see plenty of opportunities for growth: “We have grown a few extra tentacles.”

Studio Dott had been looking to take the next step for some time, reveals founder Pieter Lesage. “We struggled to increase our workforce of 25-30 employees. We were busy exploring new ways to grow.”

Achilles Design was simultaneously engaged in the same exercise. “We had already exceeded that figure and already grown to just over 40 employees. But like Studio Dott, we were keen to take the next step in our growth,” explains Jürgen Oskamp. “So we all sat around the table and soon found ourselves on the same page. Both our companies started out solely focused on product development, but expanded our activities some time ago. Everything revolves around innovation, that’s the common denominator. Our businesses also proved particularly complementary. Studio Dott does things in service design that we could not, conversely we had in-house expertise in engineering that they lacked.”

“It's a bit like growing a few new tentacles,” Lesage adds. “We can offer our existing customers additional expertise and extra services. But above all, I see that we are actually playing in a new league together. In the past, we occasionally encountered a large company that was worried we were not big enough to handle their design and innovation projects. We only set up Dott Achilles two months ago, but that scepticism has been overcome. You can spin it any way you want but size does matter.”

What conditions are necessary for a merger to be successful? “There has to be a cultural match,” stresses Oskamp. “In recent years, I have seen several agencies in our sector being acquired by major players, in some cases by large consulting firms. In many cases, you never hear from those design and innovation agencies after that. Under no circumstances did we want to bring on board a purely financial party that has no feel for what we do. With Studio Dott, that click is obviously there.”

Lesage confirms: “That was very important to us: this is not an acquisition, it is a merger of two equal partners. There is a lot of enthusiasm to continue our activities. We are fully committed, there’s no question of a partner retiring or taking a sabbatical. By joining forces, we can take on even greater and more challenging projects. That’s the content-related aspect. But, of course, there is also the business aspect. The merger offers us a way to remain 100 per cent independent and stand entirely on our own two feet. As Jürgen pointed out, getting involved with a financial party rarely ends well. The margins in our sector are too low for a player like that, so it immediately demands higher margins. That can only be achieved if you compromise on quality, which was a no go for us.”

Besides the cultural match, Oskamp sees a second important factor for a merger to succeed. “You definitely mustn’t underestimate governance. We are a 100% self-managed company. You cannot reverse that. Studio Dott was not entirely self-managed, but came close. The step is not that big. Merging with an agency that adopts a very top-down approach hierarchically would be a very bad idea. It wouldn’t take long for things to go wrong.”

Lesage emphasises that if you want to ensure a merger will work, you should certainly not force it on your employees. “Our teams took the final decision on the merger. If our employees hadn’t been in favour of it, Dott Achilles would not exist today. Our teams were involved in preparing for the merger early on in the process. By the way, I am tremendously proud of the fact that everyone - 65 people in total - had been informed about the plans for two months and there were no leaks whatsoever about the merger. In my view, that’s a huge vote of confidence.”

“Of course, everyone was taken by surprise at first. There weren’t really any signs, there were no financial woes at all, so nobody saw the merger coming. But once the initial shock subsided, our teams quickly saw all the new opportunities that are now emerging.”

Omvorm wants to use design to support important social transitions. To maximise monitoring of that mission, Mathias De Winter and Ben Hagenaars set up a new structure: a steward-owned cooperative. “Rapid growth is not the goal, the mission comes first.”

“From linear to circular, from exclusive to inclusive, etc. We are convinced that design can be an effective tool to help shape the complex social changes of our time,” explains Mathias De Winter. “That's how the idea grew to create a design studio where that mission really is the focus. We agreed that we needed to form a collective, as we need to pool diverse expertise to fulfil our ambitious mission. Part of that mission involves setting our own agenda and approaching companies with our ideas. We felt that the traditional structure of most agencies didn’t lend itself to that and that we needed to invent something new.”

“After much thought and lots of meetings, we ended up with a steward-owned studio, a specific cooperative form. In a steward-owned cooperative, there is a clear separation between decision-making rights and economic rights. That is to say, investors are entitled to a fair share, but have no decision-making rights over the direction the cooperative takes and the choices it makes. That decision-making power is reserved for the stewards, the people who actually work in the cooperative.”

“We are also going to allocate one more so-called ‘impact share’. That share comes with a right of veto to pull the stewards back in line should they drift too far from Omvorm’s mission at some point. In the Netherlands, there are specialist organisations that manage an impact share in various cooperatives. We are still exploring who best to allocate the share to.”

“Here, the structure is perhaps not really known or established yet. We have to be the pioneers,” Hagenaars adds. “But in Denmark, 60 per cent of all companies and organisations are steward-owned to a certain extent. Another example we drew on is the New York-London design studio Pentagram, which adopts the partnership model the way law firms are structured. We will adopt the same approach, but without the internal competition between partners. So it’s definitely not like we are reinventing the wheel.”

Rapid growth is not Omvorm’s ambition, Hagenaars underlines. “But we definitely want to grow to ten or more stewards. But most importantly, we will stick to our vision in the long term. The more souls, the more joy, but we are looking for stewards who can all get behind our vision and with whom there is a personal click. We have worked out a procedure for that purpose. For example, we only bring on board people who have already worked with one of the stewards on at least one project. You don't have to buy into Omvorm either, you are not required to invest if you want to become a steward. Above all, you have to share our passion and mission, and ideally possess complementary expertise.”

The unique structure should also translate into a different way of working, according to De Winter. “One of our major frustrations is that when we worked in design studios ourselves, they were rather hierarchically organised, with designers, sales people, account managers, etc. Those intermediaries sometimes complicated the lines of communication between the designer and the customer. At Omvorm, every designer also has to work on sales and account management. You can only build a close relationship with the customer through direct contact.”

“This connection is important because our aim is co-creation,” Hagenaars explains. “We want to engage with companies and organisations to define relevant issues. Not just to solve problems, but to formulate questions and work on problem framing so that we solve truly relevant problems.”

Equals Three has been combining innovation and design with financial services since 2023. An unusual combination for a design agency, but a logical move, according to co-founder Mathias Schaubroeck: “When you understand the financial parameters, you increase the value of your innovation projects as well as the chance of success.”

Equals Three was founded twelve years ago as Absintt and changed its name last year. The focus was initially on strategy and product development, but over the years the agency has added branding, marketing and, for the past two years, financial services to its offering.

“The idea of also providing financial services actually emerged from discussions with our customers,” Mathias Schaubroeck explains. “At a certain point, they hit a ceiling and organic growth was no longer possible. At this point, acquisitions, for example, become a means of achieving further growth. In addition, we noticed that many SME founders were also already thinking about the next step: selling their company within x number of years. They want to get a good price for it, of course, but it is also important to them that the business they have built continues to exist sustainably.”

“So, the idea started to take shape to help our customers not only with innovation and design, but also with financial support. Joëll De Smet jumped on board as a partner and has a great deal of financial experience. Equals Three not only refers to the unique combination of services and talent we have in-house, but also to the interaction with our customers. When we combine their knowledge of the market with our expertise, one plus one becomes not two, but three.”

Schaubroeck thinks it’s logical for a design agency to also offer financial services. “We have always profiled ourselves as a partner for growth. But that is a generic claim that every agency makes. Also offering financial services allows us to reinforce that claim.”

“All too often the business angle remains underexposed by design agencies. Design is never a goal in itself, it is a means to an end. The financial choices a company makes also impact its design choices. What offering do you take to the market, to a prospective buyer or to a company you want to acquire yourself? Every company has limited resources, which it must use as wisely as possible to generate maximum impact. Do you need to develop new products? Or is a redesign more appropriate? You cannot take those decisions until you know and understand the bigger picture.”

Was it difficult to market Equals Three’s unusual offering? “We spent some time looking for the right angle to use to tell our story. Our customers are mainly SMEs. We found that the traditional questions we asked them did not produce any real results. ‘How do you view innovation?’ ‘How do you want to stay ahead of the competition?’ They were too abstract. When we asked if they had ambitions to become a market leader in their segment, that had an effect. There are some Belgian SMEs with the potential to get there, but besides motivation and knowledge, they need the right ongoing support. That is exactly what Equals Three can provide.”

“As a creative agency, you can pick a niche, but then you really have to be the very best in that niche. We took a holistic approach. Even though our offering has expanded, innovation and design remain incredibly important to Equals Three. It’s our background, it’s in our DNA.”

“Thanks to our creative reflex, we can produce a memorandum to sell a business that is much more insightful than the standard on the market. Conversely, thanks to our financial experts, our designers delve much deeper into the data. That’s how we enhance the accuracy of design. It may be somewhat unusual for the design world, but we feel that the combination is catching on. If we help sell a company, nine times out of ten we stay on board with the new owners as a partner for continued growth.”