Carlzon was also one of the founders of the Internet retail company CDON AB. SAS has never since flown aircraft with as large a capacity as it does not believe the flights would be profitable.Ĭarlzon left SAS in November 1993 and founded the investment company Ledstiernan in 1994 where he was chairman. At the same time increasing oil prices and a less than profitable first class operation led to SAS scrapping First Class on its intercontinental routes and retiring its Boeing 747s from service, a task completed in 1987. In the latter years of Carlzon's tenure at SAS he was coming under increased pressure from shareholders as competitors had caught up with the lead established by SAS in the business market in the early 1980s. The task of re-developing the corporate identity was later given to another firm. Incidentally, the other two Nordic countries, Finland and Iceland, are both republics and would therefore not be represented by crowns. This caused a huge public furore as SAS only contains the airlines of the three monarchies Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Unfortunately, either the brief to the agency, Landor Associates, was not good enough or they had misunderstood it and painted the plane with 5 crowns to symbolize the 5 Nordic countries. The changes at SAS led to Air Transport World naming SAS the Airline of the Year for 1983 in early 1984.Ĭarlzon also oversaw a complete corporate identity re-design, a process which was marred when a journalist gained unlawful access to a hangar with a plane painted in a proposed livery was photographed and widely published in Scandinavian newspapers. The American Management Association, in their 75th anniversary issue of their magazine in 1998 called this one of the most important developments in management of the 20th century. The flat organizational structure, delegation processes, and empowerment of employees adopted at SAS also led to Carlzon writing a book, Riv pyramiderna! ( Swe., which translates into Tear Down the Pyramids), published by Bonnier in Stockholm in 1985 and translated into English in 1987 by Harper Perennial under the title Moments of Truth. Scandinavian Service School since went on to establish offices in all three of the Scandinavian countries as well as Finland and the training program was exported to other airlines including British Airways and Japan Airlines. This decentralisation of the organization led to both a large boost in company morale and the formalization of the training methodology of the program in a joint venture in 1982 with TMI called Scandinavian Service School. Several case studies about the turn-around are available and it has been referenced widely in management literature These changes soon impacted the bottom-line as well and the company made a profit of $54 million in 1982. No front-line employee has to wait for a supervisor's permission.". Jan Carlzon said at the time: " Problems are solved on the spot, as soon as they arise.
The program was focused on delegating responsibility away from management and allowing customer-facing staff to make decisions to resolve any issues on the spot. Within one year of taking over, SAS had become the most punctual airline in Europe and had started an ongoing training program called Putting People First developed by Claus Møller of Time Manager International ('TMI'). One of the first things Jan Carlzon did at SAS was to introduce the world's first separate cabin for Business Class while at the same time doing away with First Class on its European routes. He revolutionized the airline industry through an unrelenting focus on customer service quality. Furthermore, the company had a reputation for being a very centralized organization, where decisions were hard to come by to the detriment of customers, shareholders, and staff.
14 of 17 airlines in Europe when it came to punctuality. A 1981 survey showed that SAS was ranked no. Challenges at SAS Īt the time Jan Carlzon took over the helm of SAS, the company was facing large financial difficulties and losing $17 million per annum and had an international reputation for always being late. Carlzon joined the Scandinavian Airlines System in 1980 and served as its CEO from 1981. Carlzon was Product Manager at Vingresor AB from 1969 to 1971, Director of Marketing at Vingresor/Club 33 AB from 1971 to 1973, and finally CEO from 1974 to 1978. Career Ĭarlzon started his career in the international hospitality industry at Vingresor AB.
He graduated with an MBA from the Stockholm School of Economics in 1967. Early life Ĭarlzon was born on 25 June 1941 in Nyköping, Sweden, the son of Gösta Carlzon and his wife Essie (née Jörgensen). He is most noted for being chief executive officer of SAS Group from 1981 to 1994. Jan Gösta Carlzon, né Karlsson (born 25 June 1941) is a Swedish businessman.
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