Kodak and Digital photography

Kodak and the Advent of Digital Photography

Introduction

Famous for its motto You press the button , we do the rest , Kodak is among the America 's first innovative companies , by transforming complicated and unwieldy processes handy to use and easily reached by everybody since 1888 . From that time on , Eastman Kodak Company lead the world with numerous products that made the company a household name until now

It is a company listed in NYSE (symbol : EK , even a component in the Dow Jones Industrial Average . It is brand recognized in almost

all countries around the world , with most of world 's photography products related to it

However , because of many technological events that took place especially with the introduction of digital photography , the future profitability prospects of Kodak were predicted by experts to be very limited unless the company will seek ways to reinvent existing markets

Changes in Kodak 's business Environment

There are many changes in the firm 's business environment that had tremendous impacts to the profitability of the firm . Most of the changes in the past especially the boom in the color technology had propelled the company into a 1 billion dollar firm in 1963 and a 10 billion firm in 1981

In addition , the company had committed mistakes in its operations that failed it to see future industry changes , the most recent revolution of which is the digital revolution , wherein the company had endured the pain of not being able to fully adapt to the technological change

Revolution Number 1 : The Color Technology Revolution-The Boom

Kodak banked on basic principles of mass production at low costs , heavy advertising , international reach and customer growth and focus through research and development ADDIN EN .CITE MendesGeorge MendesWhat Went Wrong at Eastman Kodak ?282005May 6 2007http /72 .14 .235 .104 /search ?q cache :po8SaY9ZdqMJ :strategytank .awardspace .com /articles /Wh at 2520went 2520wrong 2520at 2520Eastman 2520Kodak .pdf kodak and the dig ital revolution gavetti henderson giorgi HBS hl tl ct clnk c d 10 gl ph client firefox-a (Mendes , 2005 . Its competitive philosophy had endured for many decades making the firm very profitable . However , as movies and cartoons become colored , the boom continued for Kodak , as its business seem like a monopoly for US market . The color technology boom prospered , but Kodak had ignored an opportunity that turned out to be a threat afterwards : the Digital Revolution

Revolution Number 2 : The Digital Revolution and Kodak

The digital camera revolution can be traced back in the 1970 's when Texas instruments introduced the first film-less camera . Kodak was also able to develop camera cassette tape recs as storage of images however , further research and development was not explored as the camera was not meant for mass production (Bellis , 2007 . Kodak during the period 1983-1993 on the other hand diversified on other businesses such as IBM copier services business such as Clinical Diagnostics (in-vitro blood analyzers , Mass Memory (floppy disks , Other bioscience lab research firms , Sterling Drug (pharmaceutical firm , while its competitor Fuji...