Case Study

Unit 10 : Assignment 3

1 . A corporate strategy is used by a company in to determine what its position should be in the marketplace . Companies use it as a guide to make decisions and to determine which path to take . Most importantly it focuses the company on answering the basic organizational questions such as where to compete , how to use revenue effectively , how to expand without using up available capital , and where to draw the line between expanding one 's business and acquiring other companies (Bryan , et . al 1998 . Kodak took advantage

of the concept of economy of scale , the theory of which states that as a business increases production of one product , its costs for that product decrease . Prior to the 1970 's Kodak 's corporate strategy was to focus on the following objectives : 1 mass production to lower production costs , 2 ) technological superiority 3 ) advertising , 4 ) worldwide expansion (Jones , C413

The first strength of this strategy is that Kodak was able to establish itself worldwide as the brand leader in photographic equipment . By producing in mass quantities , Kodak achieved economy of scale and had minimal costs for its products . Additional strengths during this time were supplying its own parts and expanding worldwide in to firmly establish Kodak as the leader in the photographic industry . Its main weakness was not anticipating competition the Japanese were easily able to break into the market with Fuji by cutting costs . Its worldwide expansion strategy also proved to be a problem as producing film in many countries added to Kodak 's costs . Finally , by concentrating 75 of its profit base on color film and , Kodak did not immediately have the resources to compete with Fuji 's technologically-advanced production strategies

2 . When the environment changed in the 1970 's and 1980 's , Kodak was presented with new opportunities for products and production . The main opportunity during this time was to introduce new products on the market . They originally had the idea to mass produce easy-to-use inexpensive 35mm cameras , but did not pursue the opportunity at the time . The Japanese managed to introduce the cameras first and to gain market share . However , there was still ample opportunity for Kodak to produce its own 35mm cameras , and thus be able to produce and sell different types of film . Kodak 's main threat during this time was not being able to seize the right opportunities . During the 1980 's , Kodak introduced the disc camera . It anticipated a great demand , but the 35mm camera from the Japanese became its main threat and most of the disc cameras remained unsold . Kodak experienced yet another threat when it lost its patent suit with Polaroid Corporation (Jones , C414 . Once again , Kodak failed to seize an opportunity when it opted not to enter the instant photograph market . Polaroid took advantage of this technology and became the leader . When Kodak attempted to compete with its instant camera , they were sued by Polaroid and lost the case . Thus they experienced the...