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“You Press the Button, We Do the Rest.” It has been a long time since we heard such a slogan. Kodak, once a billion dollar company, is now worth only a couple hundred millions. What’s the reason behind its failure?
When George Eastman was still alive, he had made many brave moves such as shifting his company from developing black and white films to making color films. During that time, color film was inferior to black and white and Kodak was already in the lead of doing black and white. However, his enterprise mindset and his enthusiastic attitude for changes allowed the company to gain a place at the top of the photography industry. After his part away, Kodak management team was never the same.
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I think that because Kodak began as a film developer, many CEOs wanted to stick to original business plan, that is to sell only film cameras. They were ignorant to the disruptive digital technology. Furthermore, Kodak made a cliché mistake; it didn’t ask the right question. Instead of focusing more on the business that it was in, sharing memories, Kodak instead focused on selling more products. If its valued proposition is to let people share memories, Kodak should do whatever it takes to keep up with new photography technologies and inventions. In the blog, it is mentioned that Kodak purchased a chemical business for $5.1B because it wanted to develop chemically treated photo paper. (Another attempt to stick to film photography> huge mistake)
Today I think Kodak has learned its billion-dollar lesson. Just around last month, the company has released it newest product, a 360-degree sport camera, which is integrated with all kind of technologies. However, Kodak’s newly adapted strategy might have been a bit too late.
Source:
http://smallbiztrends.com
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/3/