Kodak Leadership Issues
George Eastman he would have never thought Kodak will become a “Kodak Moment”, when it filed bankruptcy on 19Jan2012 after 131 Years. An American icon company, failed to spin the wheel that was once invented in photographic business by Eastman. Famous tagline Kodak Moment created wonderful memories to people. At its peak it created more than 150,000 jobs worldwide. In 1975, Kodak invented digital camera when very rest of the world was with film photography. Company became a household name when Kodak East Share Cameras were introduced in 2003. Kodak as a company excelled beyond any ones expectations under the Photographic Films and Digital Camera business, later to lose its identity in digital world.
A century old Journey as an Icon, a Company and Market Leader Kodak faced various dilemmas. Though best inventions and good products emerged during 1970 to 2005, lack of clarity led the empire to dust. This resulted in Leaders at Kodak directed and redirected company from Photographic to Imaging to printing to Consumer Electronics. New players like Fuji Films, Apple and Google, used this opportunity and situation to grow against a giant. To add more, product or service diversification was easy for small player while Kodak struggled for same because of organization size. Kodak used ‘Perfect Product (PP)’ approach to reach customers others used more dynamic approach of ‘Invent it, Introduce it and Improve it (III)’. The dilemma to switch between PP to III, lost the race for Kodak. This led to slow product delivery for technology greed customer needs. I see that when Kodak struggled to cross Tuckman’s 2nd stage – Storming Stage, players like Cannon and Nikon were inch close to 4th stage – performing.
The concept of leader/company give way for new technology/product/service, by killing their own earlier sometimes successful product/services, can be read in Innovator’s Dilemma by Clay Christensen. At Google, Orkut gave way Buzz and later Buzz gave way to Google +. At
A century old Journey as an Icon, a Company and Market Leader Kodak faced various dilemmas. Though best inventions and good products emerged during 1970 to 2005, lack of clarity led the empire to dust. This resulted in Leaders at Kodak directed and redirected company from Photographic to Imaging to printing to Consumer Electronics. New players like Fuji Films, Apple and Google, used this opportunity and situation to grow against a giant. To add more, product or service diversification was easy for small player while Kodak struggled for same because of organization size. Kodak used ‘Perfect Product (PP)’ approach to reach customers others used more dynamic approach of ‘Invent it, Introduce it and Improve it (III)’. The dilemma to switch between PP to III, lost the race for Kodak. This led to slow product delivery for technology greed customer needs. I see that when Kodak struggled to cross Tuckman’s 2nd stage – Storming Stage, players like Cannon and Nikon were inch close to 4th stage – performing.
The concept of leader/company give way for new technology/product/service, by killing their own earlier sometimes successful product/services, can be read in Innovator’s Dilemma by Clay Christensen. At Google, Orkut gave way Buzz and later Buzz gave way to Google +. At