If you don’t protect your industrial design(s) then it follows that you may not enjoy exclusive rights to them. Consequently, your competitors may take a product to market, incorporating your industrial design, without getting your permission.
So if a competitor or anyone else makes, sells or imports products bearing or embodying a design which is a copy (or substantially copy) of your industrial design without your consent, you will have no legal means to fight them. Moreover, it is likely that copies of the industrial design will be sold at a lower price as competitors do not have to recoup the investments made in the creative process. This could reduce your market share for the product in question and be harmful both to your firm’s reputation and to that of your products.