As chief executive of BAA, Sir John Egan has changed the global perception of airport environments by adopting an "experience management" mentality that responds to consumer needs. In the process, he has built BAA into the world's most successful airport company. Here he is interviewed by Peter Lawrence, chairman of Corporate Design Foundation.

Particularly for our American readers, please describe BAA's business scope.

In the UK we own seven airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, and overseas we own as many airports or, at least, have significant long-term management contracts running airports in Naples, Italy; Melbourne, Australia; and the Air Mall in Pittsburgh, USA. We're negotiating with a number of governments for the purchase of other airports that have a mind to privatize. Our airport-related businesses include both property development and retail, with annual turnover of £1.25 billion - more than half of which comes from retail.

Why design?

Because it is absolutely at the center of achieving our strategic intent of being the best in the business. Design helps to shape experience, and the quality of experience that people have of any company is the most influencing factor in shaping their attitude toward it. It affects loyalty, repeat purchase and the way people talk about the company to colleagues and friends.

What are some operating objectives addressed by design?

As an airport operator, we must be capable of moving millions of people efficiently, but we must do more than just move people. We must be experience managers. In other words, we must create the most appropriate experience for everyone using our airport. At the same time, we must ensure that our facilities are designed so they are easy to build, efficient to run and affordable.

For BAA, does design extend beyond architecture and decor?

Design of an airport is about more than painting and decorating. It is much more than visual, although visual matters more than you might first think. Creating the right customer experience is a function of the facility's size and shape, its ambiance, the quality of light, visual characteristics, the behavior of the staff, how we communicate with people - the message, the medium, and perhaps most important, the tone of voice. Design is a primary means by which we give customers what they want.

What do BAA customers want?

BAA customers want quality facilities that provide them with a continuity of quality experience as they journey through our airports. In an industry like ours that has a project culture, it is too easy to forget that any one project is only one element of a customer's experience of that company. Projects must be seen in the context of the customer. What is it like for them to pass from one space, or experience, to another? Is the experience they have in one space appropriate to that point in their journey? Does it provide the necessary continuity to the next step on their journey?

What elements go into a customer's experience in an airport?

At an airport, there are a variety of steps that you go through from where you leave your motorcar, or get off the train, to when you board the airplane. It is critical that customers have the experience most appropriate to where they are on their journey. While waiting for a flight, retail shops and entertainment that excite and surprise may be welcome. But at the baggage drop or check-in, that's the last thing you want. There, you probably want a sense of order and calm and a feeling that someone is in control. Defining the experience that customers want becomes a criterion by which you can judge the design work you commission.

You have stated that you learned more from Disney World than from other transport facilities. Could you explain?

The basic requirement of our business is to be people movers, but our vision is to be a company of expert "experience managers." In these areas, Disney is one of the best. After all, they manage millions of people every year - as we do - but in such a way that minimizes hassle. This aspect of experience management is relevant to us. We have had many discussions with Disney to understand how they go about experience management.

Is BAA using design as a market differentiator?

Design is a strategic resource, and so must be organized and managed to provide the crucial link between business strategy and project activity. Thoughtful design decisions say clearly where a company wants to be in its marketplace. That strategic intent may be concerned with innovation as at Sony or Philips, or value for money as at Marks & Spencer or Ford Motor, or impeccable service as at our very own Heathrow Express [BAA's new high-speed train that runs between London and Heathrow in 15 minutes]. All companies operate in highly competitive environments where their products or services are differentiated only by design. As Rodney Fitch, one of the four outside advisors on our design board, once remarked, "Only one company can be the cheapest, the others have to use design."

In most companies is design investment managed from the top down?

Within many companies, design investment is the largest single sum of money that their boards know the least about. Despite its importance, responsibility for it is often divested to junior people across diverse parts of the business. Consequently, spend on design resides in countless budgets and simply mounts up - that's if you can ever find it all! Lots of people in lots of positions are spending money on design with no strategic direction given by the company as to what it wants from the effort. As a result, design is seen as something optional and of tactical use only. Unfortunately, I am convinced that many people involved in commissioning design are unaware of the significance of their responsibilities.

How can senior managers take better advantage of design opportunities?

First, they have to recognize that there's a clear connection between design activity and how the company is manifest to each of its audiences or stakeholder groups. They have to realize that every single pound spent on design should help the company realize its vision or strategic intent. It is therefore critical that design be led from the center of the business and managed in a coordinated and coherent way. This does not mean that only one person should have responsibility for design spend or design decisions. It does mean, however, that one person should be responsible for ensuring that design investment is working effectively on the strategic intent of the business. At BAA, we not only have design managers in all our key businesses, we have a Group Design Director whose job it is to maximize return on our investment, particularly with respect to design focus and appropriate quality. I also get directly involved in the process by chairing a design board that meets quarterly to review all projects.

How does a company determine the size and form of its design investment?

First, it's important to clarify your vision. Understand the distinction between vision and mission. BAA's mission is to be the world's most successful airport company. Our vision, however, is to attain and maintain the high ground implicit in that mission. That means always giving the customer a) what he wants and b) what he doesn't realize he wants, but what he finds will be a great benefit. Second, understand "the context for design" - where design touches the company. Until we have a clear context for design, we can't analyze individual design projects or manage and direct them in a way that will help us achieve our vision. From this, a budget can be drawn up and organizational responsibilities agreed upon.

At what point should the CEO and senior management play the strongest role?

Designing involves a complex process of decision iterations, which must take place during the project's development stages while the cost of the change is minimal. The drawing board is the place to make change and experiment. The longer you spend preparing for production, the less likely that costs will get out of hand on the factory floor or building site. The rule of thumb is to keep your options open as long as you can and while it costs little to do so. After that, close everything down to the option that you are going to run with. The design teams should ensure that projects are fully designed before they leave their office. Once they do leave, the CEO should stay at arm's length.

Keeping management at arm's length is easier said than done.

Yes, for this to happen, senior managers must be educated in how the design process works and when it is appropriate to make their input and changes. BAA's design board meets quarterly to review all major projects. We are never allowed to forget when it is possible to make changes and when we cannot.

If CEOs or managers don't understand the design process, how do they learn to ask the right questions?

The designer's responsibility is to make it clear how the design process works. Designers need to help the client fix the brief and understand what decisions will be needed and when.

With seven airports in the UK and as many overseas, do you attempt to standardize design in all your locations?

In managing customer experience, we try to understand what ought to be common among our airports and what can be unique. For instance, whenever there is an intimate customer/company interface, say in the provision of information through a signage system, there is value in a high level of commonality. But for the shell of a building, standardization from its passengers' perspective is not so important. However, it certainly is if you are trying to reduce costs of design and construction. Wherever possible, we come up with solutions that we can use time and again. The issue of standardization is important to us in terms of customer experience and procurement strategem.

In the airport business is there such a thing as a "global" customer?

Yes. The expectations of people who use our airports and travel on airlines are rising because, as individuals, they are becoming global by nature. Our products and services must respond. We recognize that unless the quality of experience people have of us is commensurate with our strategic objective of being an industry leader, our reputation will suffer and so will our profits.