Setting a foundation for future-oriented innovation management

In order to secure and further expand its leading role in the aviation industry for the future, Lufthansa and UNITY conducted a group-wide foresight process. Alternative future scenarios were developed through the year 2030 for each of the four business segments: Aviation (consisting of Lufthansa Passage, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings and Brussels Airlines), Catering (LSG Sky Chefs), Logistics (Lufthansa Cargo) as well as Bonus Programs (Miles & More). Based on this, future business opportunities, areas of risk and customer needs were identified for each individual business segment and they were used to derive six to ten strategic innovation fields. In the projects, Lufthansa benefited from the use of the scenario technique which is a systematic methodology that is used to predict future developments. This set the foundation for future-oriented strategy development and innovation planning. Then in phase 2, ideas were generated in a structured manner and systematic qualification processes for disruptive and highly promising ideas were established. UNITY supported the innovation process from creating business cases to developing decision gates. Some of the ideas have now been fully implemented and successfully introduced to the market. Moreover, the culture of innovation was further promoted and a uniform understanding of relevant framework conditions for the future was created across all business segments.