- 03/12/2012
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
Lufthansa is one of the largest airlines in the world, which holds the leading position in German and European markets. At the same time, the current development of the company confronts substantial difficulties provoked by both objective external and subjective internal factors. In actuality, the company attempts to improve its marketing position through the ongoing international market expansion but, on the other hand, the company still has to stumble through numerous challenges, such as the overall decline of the airline industry, the global economic recession, the drop of the company’s revenues, natural disasters, and other factors that prevent the company from the effective progress and consistent improvement of its marketing position. As the matter of fact, the current economic problems and financial difficulties have put the company under a threat of bankruptcy. In such a situation, the company has to undertake bold steps to avoid bankruptcy. Otherwise, the inactiveness of the company is likely to lead to its ruin that may provoke even a more sever crisis in the airline industry in global terms. Nevertheless, in spite of existing difficulties and financial problems, Lufthansa remains one of the largest airline companies in the world and it can improve its position consistently on the condition of the effective management and financial policies conducted by the company as well as the support from the part of the state, especially in the EU.
On analyzing the current position of Lufthansa in international markets, it is necessary to take into consideration several trends, such as demographic, economic, social, political and others. In actuality, demographic trends are particularly important for Lufthansa because the company needs to develop positive company-customer relationships in order to raise the number of loyal customers and to improve the brand image of the company. Positive company-customer relationships and positive public brand image of the company is of the utmost importance in the contemporary business environment. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that the brand comprises an integral part of the market value of the company. Today, the brand is a part of company’s asset which increases or decreases the market value of the company respectively to the positive or negative attitude of the public to the brand. The reliability and popularity of the brand is an essential condition of a stable marketing performance and successful international market expansion. In this respect, Lufthansa is quite successful because the company has an extensive experience of operations in German, European and international markets. Nevertheless, the company still needs to work carefully on the maintenance of its positive brand image and positive company-customer relationships.
In this respect, the company has to take into consideration demographic peculiarities of its target customer group. Specialists (Calder, 112) point out that each customer segment has different profitability, requirements, and expectations. Therefore, Lufthansa has to take into consideration all these factors to develop an effective strategy of its public relations. In actuality, the company is particularly interested in the premium segment of the market, which involves mainly businesspersons, who use services of Lufthansa to travel worldwide and who need to fly on the regular basis. This means that this customer group tends to become loyal customers if the company manages to meet their needs and wants.
On the other hand, it is important to remember about other customer groups. In this regard, the main, target customer group of Lufthansa is the middle-class, which provides the overwhelming majority of customers of the company. Lufthansa needs mass customers, especially today in the time of the economic recession and slow recovery of the world economy after the recent economic crisis. At the same time, specialists (Stewart, 195)
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point out that the company needs to meet expectations and requirements of target customer groups to build up effective and successful company-customer relationships. Taking into consideration that the target customer group of Lufthansa includes the premium segment and the middle-class, it is obvious that the requirements and expectations of the target customer group are very high. Hence, Lufthansa has to establish high quality standards to meet requirements and expectations of its customers. In this regard, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that Lufthansa is traditionally oriented on high quality standards and currently the company implements the total quality management strategy, which comprises an integral part of the marketing strategy of the company. Remarkably, the total quality management refers not only to the quality of services delivered by the company to its customers but also to the relationships within the company. What is meant here is the fact that the company is concerned with the quality of relationships between managers and employees of the company to form a positive organizational culture.
At the same time, as it has been already mentioned above, the company focuses on two distinct segments –premium and middle segments. Specialists (Littman, 2) point out that each segment is offered different service level to meet the buying power of each customer group. In practice, this means that the clients of the premiums segment receive the full range of services of the top quality, whereas mass customers, who are representatives of the middle class mainly, cannot afford paying for services of the premium segment. Therefore, the company limits the range of services for average customers but it does not decrease the quality of services. In fact, the quality of services is equally important for both segments Lufthansa operates in but the scope of services provided for the premium and middle segment differs consistently. In such a way, through the high quality of services the company meets needs and expectations of its target customer groups respectively to the segment customers belong to.
In addition, the company differentiates customers by demographic factors, purchase history, profitability. In this respect, specialists (Stewart, 184) stress the importance of demographic factors, such as the age of customers, their social standing, and professional background. In actuality, retired persons, and the middle-age customers comprise the majority of customers using services of Lufthansa. The services of the company are not always available to the youth because of the relatively high price they have to pay for the company’s services. Nevertheless, the company attempts to expand its customer group involving a larger number of young people because they may become loyal customers, who use the company’s services on the regular basis in the adulthood and middle-age. At the moment, the people above 30 comprise the overwhelming majority of Lufthansa’s customers. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the fact that customers using services of Lufthansa belong to the middle and upper-class mainly.
Furthermore, purchase history is of the utmost importance for Lufthansa. The company has the loyalty program which implies consistent discounts to customers, who use the company’s services on the regular basis. The company stimulates customers to use services of the company through discounts. In such a way, through tracking the purchase history of customers, the company provides them with an opportunity to save money while using services of Lufthansa. Thus, customers are not just motivated but also interested to use services of the company financially.
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