Thanks for explaining Mike. Ross, Mike’s above explanation gives a lot of good examples of why this doesn’t happen. Here are some macro thoughts.
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The design firm that could afford to have all this on staff would have tremendous overhead if they were trying to sell integrated packages of ‘all design’. There rates would be astronomical as they would have benched teams waiting for strategy work to wrap, or waiting for the next big sale. The only clients that could likely afford them would be fortune 50 type companies, who tend to not be the most design centric. Getting to my next point:
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The companies that could afford such an ‘all in’ service tend to be large… which also means old, established. They will already have buildings, products, packaging, retail. The likely hood of them wanting to do all of this at the same time is zero because the cost would be astronomical. They likely would do a project at a time: branding, retail, product. Those projects are run by different groups, sometimes in different locations with different personalities and needs. They are not going to want to be locked into one firm. Getting to my next point:
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If a company could afford to all of that, and they were going to lock themselves into one firm, it would make more financial and logistical sense to in-source the entire operation, which is what I have recommended to clients when their design buy has gotten large enough. Once you are spending that much money, you might as well bring it in house. The only real companies that could use this type of resources would be a start up with no history, doing everything for the first time… but they don’t have the cash to support that design buy, even well funded ones. What you described is millions in billables.
In my view, there are three reasons I can think of to hire outside design:
1- you have no in-house team. This is likely a short run as once they hit a certain dollar amount they will in-house.
2- the in house team is resource constrained and they need an effective extension of their team. These projects tend to be straight forward, have well contained briefs, and defined features/design languages to operate in. Typically of medium duration but of limited value as soon as internal resources free up or they expand the in-house team.
3- the company and/or in house team wants a fresh look on a project, category, way of doing business or they are faced with a new challenge in technology, competitive set, other marketplace factors, or just wants to leapfrog their current position. This is where I try to focus my practice. It is a short burst of high value contribution.
I realize that all that may read as discouraging. It is a good core idea that is optimistic and would be an ideal. Have you looked much into Kalidescope?