Kodak - the Reason for Bankruptcy

The problem in this case is concerned with Eastman Kodak losing its market share in film products to lower-priced economy brands. Over the last five years, in addition to being brand-aware, customers have also become price-conscious. This has resulted in the fast paced growth of lower priced segments in which Kodak has no presence.

If a firm’s resources are both valuable and rare, a firm may achieve a competitive advantage (Newbert, 2008). A resource is considered valuable when it improves the efficiency and effectiveness of a strategy, and when it exploits external opportunities or neutralises external threats (Barney, 1991). This wording is somewhat confusing as it draws a direct connection with the environmental model, i.e. Porter’s (1985) five forces. The ‘value’ variable could therefore be rendered exogenous to the RBV (Priem and Butler, 2001). On the other hand, Peteraf (1993) praises the model for its internal focus and ability to uncover potential sources of competitive advantage which cannot be attributed to the external environment, notably because areas of value are often so difficult to identify (Newbert, 2008). The term ‘potential’ is used because not all resources have the ability to create a SCA

The VRIO Frameworks permits to see which tangible and intangible resources give Amazon its superior performance. The company has a competitive advantage over its rivals as Amazon focuses on its customers. Amazon offers a wide array of selection of goods at various prices to its millions of customers. Amazon has been able to keep this competitive advantage by leveraging its resources. For the resources to attribute to competitive advantage they must pass the VRIO framework. The VRIO framework states that a resource must be valuable, rare, costly to imitate, and organized to captured value. Each of Amazon’s tangible and intangible resources are evaluated to see which meet the above criteria.

Kodak is known for providing the quality services, innovative products offering the best quality to customers. It developed competitive advantages and satisfied its customers during many years. Kodak has evolved different strategies in the field of traditional photography where it brought innovations and modification. Kodak has a successful history in the industry. According to the case study, the main reason behind the success of Kodak in the industry is its quality.

At 70% market share, Kodak enjoys unrivalled brand awareness. Moreover, its research showed that 50% of film buyers were Kodak-loyal and an additional 40% relied heavily on Kodak.

The Kodak Company was undisputed in the photo industry until Fujifilm, a Japanese company, was established in 1934.  Since its inception Fujifilm has become a leader in motion picture photography, audio and videotape and the floppy disc industries.   The company also boasts products such as still cameras, camcorders, photofinishing equipment, paper and chemicals, imaging and information products for the office and health care markets.

It is considered that photography only became widely available to the public when the Kodak Eastman Company introduced the box shaped Brownie Camera in 1900. (Baker, n.p.) Its features became more refined since its original placing on the market; one of the reasons why it has become considered the birth of public photography is because of the processing. Using a similar image capture system, the brownie exposed the light to a 120mm roll of film, which could be wound round, meaning six photographs could be taken before the slides needed removing. The first Brownie used a six-exposure cartridge that Kodak processed for the photographer. (Kodak.com, n.d.) Realistically, the armature photographers did not need to understand darkroom processes,

This gain value and addresses a key decisive achievement factor in the industry (Grant,2010). As position is important to offer convenience and a deep assortment, An extra unique intangible resource would be their brand representation and customer loyalty, this is vital since it can attract or attract consumers and it could be necessary to build the brand image .

For a business to be successful and have a competitive advantage, it is important to evaluate the company’s resources and capabilities (Pitt & Koufopoulos, 2012). Resources in a company are the productive assets owned (tangible or intangible) whereas capabilities are what the company can do with this (Grant, 2010). “Establishing competitive

Taking pictures with the Kodak camera was simpler than the earlier camera because first, it did not require a darkroom or chemicals and glass plates. It did not require any of these things because it was not only one person’s job to develop and take the photo. The photographer could send their camera in, and the Eastman Kodak Company would develop the pictures for them. “In the first year, 13,000 people paid $25 for a Kodak; they each took 100 pictures, returned the camera and within ten days, Kodak sent back the prints and camera with film for another 100 pictures,” (Buckland and Lefer 250). This opened up a whole new door for inexperienced photographers. All they had to do was take pictures, and send the camera

VRIN framework is the four criteria of sustainable competitive advantage. To identify a company’s competitive advantage, they must consider if their capabilities are valuable, rare, costly to imitate and nonsubstitutable.

When Kodak began making changes to its organizational architecture in 1984, its current architecture did not fit the business environment for the industry. The largest factor that motivated Kodak to make this change was increased competition and decreased market share. Until the early 1980’s, Kodak owned the film production market with very little competition. This suddenly changed when Fuji Corporation and many other generic store brands began producing high quality film as well (Brickley, 2009, p. 358). Another factor in this change was technology advancements. As technology rapidly expanded in the 1980’s, other

* Marketing- Kodak is the world’s foremost imaging innovator. Its reputation in the film printing business is dominant. Introducing a new line of cost efficient printer ink will be effective and popular. Kodak’s target market will include anyone with a household printer. Kodak’s goal will focus

What I feel about Kodak’s move was that they are trying to make a space for themselves in an already crowded market. Kodak is trying to carve out a niche for them by offering inks for low prices. But, they have forgotten the abilities of the competitors. They have probably underestimated them. HP and Canon are big names in the printing industry and because of their continued rollout of good quality products; customers trust them more than they trust Kodak. It is also observed that Kodak had forgotten that if HP lowers their price to almost the same level like Kodak, Kodak won’t stand a chance. The only way that Kodak can hope to make some profit is by hoping that their competitors won’t reduce the price of the inks as it is the only source of revenue in the printing industry. But I am pretty sure that marketing research people of Kodak has made a blunder by opting for this. The major fact is that they have forgotten cartridge refilling industry which is cheap too and people have started to use that as they are comparatively cheaper to the original printing inks. I sincerely feel that Kodak has taken the wrong path to get out of their troubles.

To account for their miscalculation in film sales, Kodak is undergoing a massive digitally based shift. Kodak plans on building a stronger base in its consumer, medical, and profession imaging products. However, this shift does not come without a price tag. Kodak’s projected spending could reach as much as $3 billion in future investments to aid the shift. With these investments Kodak claims a tremendous turnaround in revenue. Kodak anticipates reaching $16 billion in revenue by 2006 and $20 billion by 2010. To pay