Eastman-Kodak Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Eastman-Kodak - Essay Example In 1975, Kodak invented the first digital camera. Hence they didn’t miss the digital age. But Eastman Kodak didn’t market their new technology. They feared that it would hurt their own lucrative film business, in spite of the fact that the digital products were revolutionizing the market. Sony and Canon took this near-sightedness of Kodak and charged ahead with their own digital cameras (Mui, 2012). When Kodak ultimately realized what mistake it did, it was all but too late for them. They saw their market share plummeting. Kodak didn’t recognize the business which they were in. They focussed more on selling more products, instead of concentrating on the business they were in, sharing memories (Kotter, 2012, p. 1). They were more determined on earring revenues through selling film and they though the photography business didn’t fit their business model. Hence they ignored the coming tsunami of new technology in the market. As their film business went from b eing and essential business into old fashioned one, the company could never recover. What opportunities & why did Kodak miss them? For past 15 years, digital technology has changed the photography business drastically. But Kodak, champion of analogy film business, was left behind. Kodak missed the chance to grab the digital market thrice. First miss was Digital Cameras. In 1995 it launched its first digital camera in the market, DC40. But Kodak never took advantage of this situation. Their whole business model was involving the film and printing business. It was not until 2011, that the company came out with EasyShare line for the cameras. But by them they were too late. The Second Miss is the Photo Sharing business. Kodak in 2005 launched the world’s first Wi-Fi enable camera known as EasyShare-One. Figure 1: EasyShare-One But the camera didn’t earn much revenue for the company. Hence Kodak decided to kill this product. But if the company had to foresightedness of understanding that the photo sharing was going to be the way people interacted with the photo, they might had thought about it twice. The same year when Kodak killed it, a group of engineers’ launched Eye-Fi, which had the same concept as EasyShare-One and became hugely successful. Nowadays photo sharing app is a killer app earning millions of revenues for companies. The Third Miss is Photo Viewing. Kodak was working on digital printers and digital photo frames, though it couldn’t understand the demand of it in the market. But when Kodak started to push for the photo frames with distinguishing features like batteries, Wi-Fi, the prices of the technology were falling, and it resulted in thin margins for the company. What did the competition do differently? Kodak couldn’t enter into the digital market at right time when it should have entered. Rather