This study aims to present the state of outsourcing design in the Turkish manufacturing industry, which, in the past, has been scrutinized in a limited sense. An investigation has been carried out in order to reveal the reasons for and procedures of hiring product design services from outside resources and to explore -if any- the benefits gained from this collaboration through a survey conducted with either design or production managers from a sample selection of firms manufacturing and/or marketing products in Turkey. Findings regarding the processes of outsourcing design have been recorded as well as an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of external design resources.

The thesis aims to observe the industrial design profession and to study the role of industrial designer in Turkish industry. Through an electronic questionnaire investigating the manufacturers&rsquo / and designers&rsquo / opinions about how industrial design practice is perceived and how industrial designers are utilized in Turkey it was possible to examine the current roles of industrial designers and to evaluate the status of industrial design profession. The survey also investigated how the industrial designer or the design team is situated in new product development process, and in the corporate hierarchy, what kind of investments have been made in the last decades by manufacturers in Turkey on industrial design.