Kodak’s fatal mistake
If ever there is an example of a company undershooting its customers, Kodak is it. Kodak really missed the boat on the digital photography business, which is ironic considering that Kodak invented digital film. As a result of Kodak being so late to recognize the impact of digital film on its industry and being reluctant to fill that marketplace with good quality products years ago, Kodak and its employees are now paying the price. As reported in the attached article, Kodak is in Chapter 11 and it just announced it will stop manufacturing digital cameras.
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/breaking/20120209_ap_kodaktostopmakingcamerasdigitalframes.html?nlid=4161534
David Schuff
Jeffrey M Pearce
Stavros Hadjitheocharou
Christopher W Crawford
Jim Menkevich
Eric L. Warner
Stanley R. Horwitz
Mamta Amin
Steven Borland
Shivani B. Darji
Rachel L. Gifford
Dong Hwan Lee
Tara N. Lott
Tisha M. McKinney
Karen Padula
Geoffrey R
Martin Schryver
Jerrin C. Varghese
Amy L. Virus
Adam Ford
Albert J. Foster
Steven Jacob
John V. Nguyen
yinka
Olabamigbe Olubajo
Salin Thomas
Michele Moses
Dory V. Bearden-Edwards
Elizabeth G Brown
Mouniratou Yanda-Amedutite
If you haven’t already read it, you can find more material regarding Kodak’s fall in a Harvard Publishing article entitled “Kodak and the Digital Revolution (A) “.
Yes, I use that case in MIS5001 as an example of how incumbents have trouble adjusting to change. Christensen’s “Signals of Change” has a lot of implications for Kodak’s ongoing problems. If you’re interested in this area, here’s another article to take a look at:
Day, GS and Schoemaker, PJH, Avoiding the Pitfalls of Emerging Technologies, California Management Review [Calif. Manage. Rev.]. Vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 8-33. 2000.