The importance of sticky strategies

An airline industry veteran was talking about Lufthansa's success even as other European airlines have fallen behind. I asked him, "What do you think that Lufthansa did different that enabled it to succeed?" His answer went something like this: "I think Lufthansa has had a clear vision of what it wanted to be, and has stayed true to this vision regardless of management changes. This probably best explains its success." Today the combined reputation of Lufthansa as an airline and Frankfurt airport as a hub eclipses that of British Airways plus Heathrow or Air France plus Charles de Gaulle for many travelers.

Strategy is long-term by definition. Yet very often "strategies" get dropped by the wayside at the slightest and new strategies adopted with much fanfare. Only to be dropped themselves. Poorly run companies do this all the time. Remember Air India and Indian Airlines? Remember the Maharaja logo? The IA logo? Remember Vayudoot? Remember the re-branding as "Indian" and the re-painting of the aircraft? And now the merged entity is called Air India once again. Just what is going on?




Some change is good and no strategy should be set in stone. But if you yourself don't know what you stand for, how can you expect the customers to know it and believe in it? You should try to stick to your strategies.

Now, when I began to write this post I was talking about strategies in general and not creative strategy in particular. I just happened to use the entire Indian Airlines + Air India logo fiasco to make a point. But then, on a hunch, I went to Google and searched for the history of Lufthansa's famous logo. I found it here and this is what I found!