Summary : Moments Of Truth – Jan Carlzon

Summary of Moments Of Truth (Jan Carlzon)

1.
Jan Carlzon’s Business Career Highlights
Main Idea
The concepts and philosophies of the customer-driven company were not developed through academic studies or an analysis of a broad range of companies. Instead, they were developed in Jan Carlzon’s experiences turning around three Scandinavian companies:
Vingresor – a vacation package tour developer
Linjeflyg – Sweden’s domestic airline
Scandinavian Airlines –Sweden’s international airline
Supporting Ideas
The management challenges faced in each of these three companies were significant and daunting.
Vingresor
When Jan Carlzon was appointed president at age 32, he suddenly found himself in charge of 1,400 employees.
He started out trying to make every decision himself, until a friend told him to be himself rather than trying to act like a management guru. Instead, Carlzon started focusing on creating an atmosphere where all employees could be more productive.
When the company found itself in a market slump, Jan Carlzon suggested increasing the service level and squeezing costs. The entire company was reorganized to handle customers more efficiently and flexibly.
Within a year of Jan Carlzon taking over, Vingresor earned the largest profit in the company’s history – and continued to grow and expand from that point onwards.
Linjeflyg
At age 36, Jan Carlzon was offered the presidency of Linjeflyg, Sweden’s domestic airline – which had lost $3 million the previous year.
Carlzon changed the company’s emphasis from being product-oriented to being customer-driven. One of his first acts was to cut fares – to encourage people to fly more and drive less.
Carlzon’s four-point strategy for Linjeflyg was:

Book Presentation

Moments Of Truth by Jan Carlzon

Book Abstract
MAIN IDEA
A company is defined in the minds of its customers as the composite total of every moment of truth – those short periods when the customer interacts with the company or one of its employees.
The best approach to delivering consistently high-quality moments of truth lies in building a customer-driven company. The essential characteristics of this type of company are:
The employees who interact with customers have the authority to make decisions on behalf of the company.
Middle managers who work to manage resources so the frontline employees can be more effective.