The Rise and Fall of Eastman Kodak

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.

George Eastman invented roll film and an easy to operate camera that made photography easier for anyone to experience photography. He founded the Eastman Kodak Company to manufacture cameras and photographic supplies, making the art of photography available to the masses. This talks about his life and how he came about the inventions that made photography easier for people to use and produce their own photographs.

It was Kodak’s’ strategy to sell the cameras at low prices, and it used to earn revenue from the films; this strategy is called the razor-blade strategy. This model for photography became flop when Sony introduced a camera with floppy disk inside, in which there wasn’t any use of films. As a result of Sony’s introduction of the Mavica in 1981, Kodak took it as a threat and started investing in the digital photography. For this purpose, it has conducted a huge research on the digital photography. As exposed by Fisher in 1997, Kodak’s respond wasn’t appropriate for the digital world: “One of the mistakes we [Kodak] have made is that we [Kodak]’ve tried to do it all. We [Kodak] do not have to pursue all aspects of the digital opportunity and service side.”

The problem in this case is Kodak's steadily eroding market share and shareholder value in the film rolls market. This is especially undesirable given the fact that the market has been growing at a tepid 2% annual rate and the steadily increasing threat from competition. Kodak needs to come up with a strategy for corrective action so as to arrest this decline, regain market share and increase share holder value. Kodak's strategy is to reposition itself by targeting a new segment of price sensitive customers and re-segmenting the super premium customers’ space by including a wider segment of special occasion customers.

The names of Kodak and Fujifilm are well known around the world. They are two companies that have made a name from photos, film, cameras and printers. They are competitors that started in the same business and took different paths. Though they shared similar products their management direction and company direction differed. The differences led one company to be successful and the other to struggle.

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,

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

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

In my March 6 memo, I discussed the need for Kodak to revamp its core strategy and regain popularity. Eastman Kodak has been the leader of photography and printing products for nearly 130 years. Over the last few years Kodak has been in distress due to its poor fundamental shift into the digital age. Lack of strategic creativity led Kodak to misunderstand the industry in which it was operating. This lack of strategic creativity was costly for Kodak.

In general, Kodak has done well in the innovation implementation. This paper mainly discusses the innovation system within the group also influence the innovation

In 1888, George Eastman made the first light and portable camera under the company name Kodak (Graham 28). These cameras gave people the ability to take a photo almost anywhere. The cameras had to be sent back to the factory so the photographs could be printed. Twenty years after Kodak’s first camera, they produced an improved camera, called “Brownie”. The Brownie was simple to use, making the art of photography boom. Flash cameras did not appear until the 1930s, letting people take pictures in areas with dim or little lighting. In 1947, Edwin Land invented the instant camera. Land got the idea after his daughter asked to see her picture after he took her photo. The next step in improving the camera was by making it digital, which was done in 1975 by a Kodak employee. As the camera gets smaller and simpler to use, the quality of the photographs it produces gets better.

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

While Kodak has historically been a well-established brand name in the marketplace, it struggled to find a niche when the industry morphed from a film-based market to a digital-based market. Kodak has struggled to successfully evolve its film-based business structure to the new structure of digital-based technology, which has allowed for competitors to enter the market, decreasing Kodak’s market share. Competitors (such as Canon Inc., Fuji Photo Film Co., Hewlett Packard Co., Nikon, and Sony Corp.) have posed major threats to Kodak’s livelihood. Kodak faces a 5% drop in film sales (2001-2003) and a 3% reduction in overall revenues over the same time period. In addition, revenues and net income are expected to be fairly flat (or decrease) in future estimates. Kodak faces much pressure to revitalize their business through digital imaging, a radical innovation, or risk being eaten alive in an industry they thought they controlled.

Background Eastman Kodak Company, headquartered in Rochester New York, was founded in 1889. The corporation, now multinational and focusing on imaging and photographic equipment, posted revenues in excess of $6 billion in 2011. During most of the 20th century Kodak was dominant in the photographic film industry in 1976 it held 90% of the market but began a downward slide once the Internet, digital cameras and computer processing grew. By 2007, Kodak ceased making a profit and in January 2012 filed for bankruptcy protection and ceased making cameras, video cameras and began to focus on the corporate digital imaging market (De La Merced, 2012). In evaluating Kodak's corporate strategy from the mid-1980s onward, we find that there four major management paradigms in place during this transitional period:

Eastman Kodak Company, commonly known as Kodak is an American multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquartered in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1889. Kodak is best known for photographic film products. During most of the 20th century Kodak held a dominant position in this sector. In fact, Eastman Kodak Co. is one of the dominant market share holders within the camera and other photography-related industries. Kodak pioneered amateur photography and is often credited for the invention of roll film and the first camera. The markets for color film and color photofinishing in 1954 were controlled by Kodak. It had over 90% of the amateur color