Hidden Reasons for Kodak's Digital Revolution Essay

Thomas Sowell discussed that Kodak was a leading film maker in 20th century, but was suppressed by the sales of digital camera three year after the year 2000. The new innovation of digital camera technology caused Kodak to become bankrupt. Although, even if the bankruptcy of Kodak caused losses like lay-offs, and smaller production of goods at a lower quality, there are benefits to bankruptcies. One benefit of bankruptcy is the government can shut down a business when the business cannot pay off its debt, which stops the use of resources that is not benefiting the economy. For example, when digital camera innovations made Kodak cameras obsolete, Kodak sales dropped and the company acquired debt. This

In the 1990 Kodak dominated the film photography industry with a substantial amount of market shares. Kodak was recognized as one of the world’s most valuable brands. The company was innovative and successful in its marketing campaign with slogan such as “Kodak moment” in order to bring photography to the masses at an affordable price. The

1. Diagnose the reasons for Kodak’s market share loss and make your assessment of the likely development of the market if Kodak maintained the status quo.

George Fisher Kodak’s new CEO, has been successful in attracting new talent who worked in the technology department, Fuji’s strength. He hired Daniel Carp a sales veteran for Kodak who worked all over the world. Daniel traveled the sales markets and made adjustments to up Kodak’s share and Fisher wanted to tap that information and use it. He was promoted to President and COO and Carp fully realized that the changing and emerging markets were in taking advantage of that face and his contacts around the world. To help foster the change, Kodak admitted that they had to set up shop were the talent was, and to back that up. So they bought a successful software company in Silicon Valley, and marketing that alliance to the world they were on their way to climbing out of their complacency.

Company Eastman Kodak is currently the market leader in the photo film market. The company has continued its domination of the photo film market, but in the past 5 years its market share has eased from 76% to 70%. Reason mainly being the competitors like Fuji Photo Film Co. and Konica Corp. lured consumers with their lower-priced versions. In 1993, Kodak spent an estimated $50 million on camera and film supply advertising in the United States; this was about 4 times

For a multitude of years Kodak remained synonymous with photography. Kodak developed the first handheld camera in 1900, called the Brownie (Thompson, 2014). The Brownie was inexpensive and designed for the average consumer with no professional training to take their own pictures. After capturing the pictures one would mail the film into Kodak and Kodak would develop the pictures and send return them. Kodak had created a way for people to take pictures of their lives to maintain special memories. In the company’s early years they actively searched for fresh opportunities to embrace cutting-edge technologies and sought out ways to grow sales and revenue. In the 20’s they began with home filmmaking and in the 30’s they embraced the world of color film. The company would continue in a growth mode over the next 40 years. The camera itself, provided limited revenue, on the other hand the film used by the cameras became a large revenue source. Along with the film, the process of developing the film grew and evolved. Eventually, one could drop off film and pick up developed pictures within hours.

Company Eastman Kodak is currently the market leader in the photo film market. The company has continued its domination of the photo film market, but in the past 5 years its market share has eased from 76% to 70%. Reason mainly being the competitors like Fuji Photo Film Co. and Konica Corp. lured consumers with their lower-priced versions. In 1993, Kodak spent an estimated $50 million on camera and film supply advertising in the United States; this was about 4 times its

Kodak Corporation is one of the film organizations that have obtained a bigger piece of the overall industry in the United States. It is prestigious for the generation of

Kodak is American Technology Company that was found in 1890s. Kodak main focus is photography and imaging product. Recently, Kodak decided to enter the printers industry by designing a new line of printers that produce high quality photos. Kodak also will introduce a new line of printer ink, and photo paper. Kodak main challenge is competing against the market leader in the printing industry Hewlett Packard (HP) which has the largest market share in the printing industry. Also, Kodak is entering the market twenty years late than its competitor in the market who are more experience in term of the wants and needs of the consumers. In addition, increase in the industry rivalry with HP and risk in new product and offering would be a challenge that Kodak management has to overcome in order to stay successful in business.

Kodak’s management approach on pursuing innovation by representing the latest innovation in the company’s consumer inkjet portfolio, marrying effortless connectivity with Kodak’s unique combination of high quality output and affordable ink. Kodak is committed to providing customers great value and lowest total ink replacement cost and exceptional cost per page. Fujifilm’s management approach on pursuing innovation by increasing a range of fields from imaging to medical systems. Fujifilm also became a much diversified company than Kodak by having a longer term vision in store and by investing a lot.

market power resulted in large profits. It also permitted Kodak to control the timing for

In the year 1901, the Eastman Kodak Company was incorporated; the company mass-produced dry photographic plates. This new for-the-time technology would become the catalyst to a revolution in photographic technology, and for many years the company surged ahead of its rivals and commanded 80% of the photographic imaging market (Jones). But the decision makers failed to realize that digital was a disruptive technology, and this allowed more agile competitors the chance to devour Kodak 's market share. This sort of technological paradigm shift has caught many companies by surprise by "dramatically altering the very nature of competition"; and requires the company to adjust their strategy to meet this new challenge (Hill, p. 233). The reason for this seemed to be Kodak’s dependence on their traditional technology, and to the

Kodak was doing extremely well in the market but its failure can largely be attributed to the leadership. This is because the company at some time lacked a visionary leadership that was able to comprehend the changes that were taking place in the external environment and ensure that the necessary steps were taken. For example, even though to a certain extent the failure of the company is attributed to failing to adapt to digital technology, the greatest blame lies with the leadership. This is because Kodak having dominated the imaging and photography industry for long, the company was the first to develop a digital camera way back in 1975. This means that the company had the necessary knowledge, supply chain, workforce and other resources necessary to enhance the company’s competitiveness (Pham-Gia,

Kodak is one of America’s most legendary companies and long-time manufacturer and leader of American photography. In eighteen eighty-eight, George Eastman put the first simple camera into the hands of a world of consumers. Eastman developed a profitable slogan, “you press the button, we do the rest.” During this era, Kodak possessed about ninety percent of the United States’ photographic film market. They led way with an abundance of new products and processes to make photography simpler, more useful and more enjoyable. In nineteen seventy-five, Kodak’s engineer, Steve Sassoon invented the first digital camera. (Castelluccio, 2013) Despite their abundance of products over the years, Kodak executives were blind to the business opportunity