Therefore office made in Hong Kong

Product design consultancy Therefore is launching an Asia Pacific region office, as it looks to strengthen ties with Hong Kong, China and Taiwan and capitalise on manufacturers’ growing demand for Western design expertise.

Group co-founder Graham Brett says the new Hong Kong office will initially be made up of two local representatives and two members of staff from the London office, with the potential for further growth.

Though London staffers ‘haven’t drawn the straws yet’, Brett says he expects them to travel to Hong Kong for three-to-six-month secondment on a rotational basis.

Brett says booming business for Therefore in the Asia Pacific region has compelled the group to set up the Hong Kong office. ‘We have so much work in China, we really need people on the ground. We were having to spend a huge amount of time going back and forth,’ he says.

Brett adds that the ‘timing is right’, because Chinese manufacturers are increasingly looking to ‘branch out, and develop their own brands and products, [and] are increasingly wanting to use design talent from the West’.

Therefore has 20 clients in the Asia Pacific region. Brett says the group is currently developing a range of products manufactured in the Far East, including laptops for Toshiba, digital radios for Pure Digital, Grundig, Bush, Morphy Richards and Hitachi, and a video equivalent of the iPod.