A company is a living organism. It is born and it grows. Some weaken and die. There are, however, companies that grow over a long time with strong tenacity. These companies are mostly prestigious companies. They are companies that have taken root in their communities, loved and adored by consumers. What is their secret?

 In 2011, German financial newspaper Handelsblatt surveyed the oldest companies in Germany. The oldest company in German was Prym, a buttons company founded in 1530, followed by Poschinger, a wine glass company founded in 1568, and Berenberg Bank, which opened in 1590. Prym raised my curiosity. How did this company survive for 500 years making buttons? The oldest company in Korea is only around 130 years old.

 Prym was founded in Aachen only 13 years after Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation. The first business Prym went into was smelting copper. The Prym family, who were Protestants, relocated to Stolberg and away from Aachen, which was under Catholic rule, to avoid persecution. The company started to diversify its product portfolio to buttons and needles, expanding its business. It started to make needles when customers who purchased buttons asked, "do you also sell needles?" It then started to manufacture various types of needles when customers said, "I wish there were different types of needles, big and small." It wasn't hard for Prym to diversify as this required metal processing technique. It then moved onto diversifying its portfolio to include auto parts and electronic components using the technology to make metal snap buttons on jeans.

 The four business divisions of this company – Consumer, Fashion, Intimates, and INOVAN – are connected. Prym Consumer manufactures buttons, needles and pins, while Prym Fashion produces fashion buttons and rivet accessories of various design. Prym Intimates makes hooks and clasps, while Prym INOVAN makes auto parts and electronic components. All these items share a common technology – metal processing. Prym has always used its core capability, while appropriately transforming itself to the demands of the times and customer needs.

 More importantly, it has created and designed products of a quality that exceeds consumer expectation while offering products customers desire. The buttons of this company are smooth as if they are varnished with sesame oil – so smooth that it might slip out of your hands. If the edges of a button are rough, the small sharp pieces of metal may damage the fabric of the clothing. Prym products prevent any such concerns. Prym also developed the chameleon button. It changes color depending on surrounding temperature for customers who wish to style up using buttons. The number of items developed like this almost reaches about 10 thousand. The number of products that received various innovation awards is 76. Prym holds intellectual property rights on more than 400 items, including more than 100 patents. Even with the advent of cutting-edge technology such as AI and big data, it cannot replace the buttons, needles and clothing we need in our daily lives. In other words, the relentless transformation and innovation have become the driving force behind making Prym the best company in household items category.

 Hermès is the masterpiece of handbags. The brand is known as the 'masterpiece of masterpieces.' Money isn't enough to buy a Hermès bag. Some of its items have a one-year waiting list. It is not a strategy to make consumers desperate for the bag.

 This can be confirmed at the Ateliers Hermès in Pantin, Paris. I have visited this workshop. It is where Hermès bags are made. There is a harness, the symbol of Hermès, on the first floor of the Ateliers with master craftsmen working on leather bags one stich at a time in every room. Hermès was a maker of harnesses and saddles when it first opened in 1837. Founder Thierry Hermès, who was from Krefeld, Germany, became famously known as a master craftsman of horse harnesses when he arrived in Paris.

 Then, he changed his main product to handbags. The reason being, there was no more need for horse harnesses following the advent of the era of automobiles. Hermès transformed itself according to the trend of times. Without this transformation, there would have been no Hermès. Economies of scale is the basis of any business. But Hermès rejects this principle. Executive Vice President Guillaume de Seynes, an heir to Hermès, says "We too want to raise our sales, but quality is more important." He explains, "It takes about 25 hours for an artisan to make one bag," and added "It means it takes one artisan more than a week to make two bags." Master craftsmen are the core of Hermès. An artisan is responsible from the start to end of the making process. There are 300 leather craftsmen working at Pantin Ateliers alone. It is impossible to even think to release a product made by an apprentice just to sell one more bag. Hermès continues its legend as the best handbag brand through just the right transformation and quality.

 The Cologne Cathedral is the symbol of Germany. It is known for its high spires and huge scale. When the pipe organ plays during mass, the huge cathedral is filled with entrancing sounds. The cathedral itself is a massive sound box and together with the songs of the choir it creates 'sounds from heaven.' There are 3 pipe organs at the Cologne Cathedral. And there are 7,000, 2,000 and 1,000 pipes in each of the organs located on the left, right and back, respectively, to the altar.

 The company that made these pipe organs is Klais, which is located in Bonn. It is a SME with only 65 employees. Klais is situated near the Beethoven House. Its workshop is small and simple. The smell of trees sharply hits the nose. Dozens of different species of trees, including maple trees and oriental oak trees, are laid piles upon piles. From the outside, a pipe organ looks like it is made with metal pipes, but the main parts of the instrument are actually made of wood. This process accounts for more than 70% of the total organ building process. The workshop looks like a small carpenter's shop. There are skilled craftsmen here and there cutting and slicing trees.

 There are 5 Meisters at Klais. They have the best skill and authority in pipe organ building through their experience of making the instrument for decades. It doesn't mean they earn more money. They are just those who have decided to work wearing working clothes for their entire lives dedicated to making pipe organs because of the passion they have. They are happy to make a better instrument every time. Other than the Meisters, most also have 20 to 30 years of organ making experience.

 The pipe organs Klais craftsmen built are installed in about 50 countries across the world, including Germany, Norway as well as the U.S., Canada, Israel, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Australia. There are a few reasons how this small company earned such prestige. First is the fact that it insisted on one field for more than 130 years. The company's founder, Johannes Klais, established Klais in 1882. He studied organ building at school and learned how to repair the instrument first. Another reason is technology. All employees at Klais, including the 5 Meisters, all work believing that what they do is their vocation and calling. They work with a sense of calling that they are creating the sounds from heaven, whether they work in woodworking or in casting.

 And finally, creativity. Klais has never made a same instrument twice. In other words, it transforms itself every time. It uses big pipes to create a grand sound for a cathedral and uses small and thin pipes for the ordinary music room. The designs are different every time. And because of these reasons, Klais exports to 50 countries without a single employee working on exporting. Most customers come to Bonn to sign a contract and wait for about 5 years.

 Prestigious companies provide a value that exceeds consumer expectation through quality. They are not prideful or complacent. They transform according to the trend of times. There are three things to learn from the transformation of prestigious companies.

 First, we must respect craftsmanship. Those who lead transformation at these prestigious companies are craftsmen. New products don't come from the desks of a doctorate degree holder. They come from the workshops filled with the smell of oil after many failed attempts and trials and errors, working on and struggling with the machine and equipment for a long time. This is why Germans respect Meisters. Many German hidden champions appoint Meisters as 'Chief Product Officer'. We must learn to encourage experienced craftsmen to lead new product development rather than thinking of them as those eligible for restructuring.

 Second, flexible thinking. Being engulfed by pride when the world keeps changing is the shortcut to failure. People who work at companies, from CEOs to newcomers, must always have a mind of flexible thinking. Behaving like an arrogant maverick thinking 'there is no one who knows more about this field' will soon turn away consumers. The salary of employees does not come from the executive. It comes from the pockets of consumers. Therefore, a company must always closely listen to the voices of consumers. The future of a company that insists on harnesses in an era shifting away from carriages to automobiles is obvious. These are such times.

 Third, communication. A large company in Korea still emphasizes the importance of 'tearing down walls between teams' in its management policy. It has been stressing this same principle for decades. This is an example of showing how hard communication is. There can never be an innovative product if the walls between a manager and a worker, R&D teams and production and sales teams, business majors and engineers, those from technical high schools and universities, or those hired as part of open recruitment and special recruitment aren't torn down. There are many cases of subsidiaries or business divisions not being able to collaborate, or even worse, think of each other as rivals. Working to identify and change the conflicts that exist within an organization into a collaborative relationship – and not just chanting some grand slogan – is the first step towards innovation and transformation.