Angélica M. Rodriguez Bencosme is a furniture designer and teacher at the School of Design of the Universidad Iberoamericana in the Dominican Republic. After obtaining her degree in Interior Design, she specialised in furniture, attending a postgraduate at Barcelona's Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña and a master's at the Universidad de Nebrija in Madrid. Arriving to the conclusion that furniture production is all-inclusive and a possible country brand, she has conducted independent research that has been published in local media.

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Although innovation is an accessible resource that can be easily put into practice, it has been enormously underutilised by the local furniture industry. Dominican small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are known for their mistrust of novelty as a valuable asset and avoid its always-latent risk by plagiarising classic furniture designs of known success in the local and global market.

This is so for two main reasons. SMEs do not trust that investing in new designs will be well repaid. If it ever were profitable, the new designs would continue to be copied by others and therefore, once again, would not be well repaid. Clockwise or counterclockwise, this is an infinite cycle. Perhaps copies, a common transgression, is also why local SMEs rather work alone. Due to the existing mistrust among them, SMEs frankly ignore the advantages of associating.


Above: Wood and nails sold in a small local shop. Source: Enrique Arneda

Locally, efforts to innovate still aim to lower the price of furniture. Openly contrasting with global furniture markets, where design can take up to 50% of the final sales price, the incidence of design is poor in the local furniture industry.

Without a doubt, identifying innovation levels can help one realise that innovation is more within reach for SMEs in developing countries than it may seem. In an ascending order, levels are as follows:

1. Changes made purposely to reduce production costs without affecting a product's appearance or function
When a small shop constructs a sofa's frame with the wood taken from a pallet, it's lowering production cost in a way its client will not recognise.


Above: Recollection, sale and reuse of wooden pallets for furniture production. Source: Enrique Arneda

2. Changes in the presentation of a furniture model aiming to reposition within new markets
A common example of this level is apparent in pine furniture pieces that have been painted darker to appear like mahogany.


Above: Two models with the same design, each painted differently. Source: Enrique Arneda

3. An update that a SME executes in relation to what the competition does
The increase of selling contemporary furniture in local shops has been gradual. Among the last shops that have illustrated this tendency are the so called 'hypermarkets'.

4. Addition of a model to an exitisting furniture collection is a novelty to the SME, but not to markets that have already similar kinds
Small shops do not hesitate to add new pieces of furniture to their most popular existing collections.

5. Design and construction of a new furniture collection that diversifies a SME's labor
During 2005, it was common to see shops in the capital city, Santo Domingo, add furniture models for teens and kids to their collections.


Above: Article published in a local newspaper announcing a new furniture collection for teens. Source: Listín Diario, 2005
 
6. Finally, the maximum novelty level: furniture products for the global market
In this sense, there is no need to entirely embrace global design. In the same measure that local design is a unique response to our social and economic reality, it is an answer to globalisation and its homogenisation.

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