ECONOMY - American Business Icon Survival, Kodak

"In Chapter 11 Filing, Kodak Tries to Develop New Vision for Survival" PBS Newshour 1/19/2012

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour): For decades, Eastman Kodak dominated the world of film photography with its iconic yellow boxes of film. But that was then; this is now. The photography pioneer filed today for Chapter 11, federal bankruptcy protection, after 132 years in business.

CEO Antonio Perez.

ANTONIO PEREZ, Eastman Kodak Company: We're taking this step at this point in our transformation in order to build the strongest possible foundation for the Kodak of the future.

HARI SREENIVASAN: At its peak, Kodak employed more than 60,000 people at its headquarters in Rochester, New York. But trouble began in the 1980s, in the form of global competition from Tokyo-based Fuji.

Compounding the problems, Kodak was slow to shift from film in the 1990s as digital technology emerged.

Another excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN: Now, on the one hand, the company was excellent at marketing, in the sense that it's a household name. And when we think of Kodaks, we think of photographs.

JULIE PHILIPP, WXXI-TV (Rochester, New York): Mm-hmm.

HARI SREENIVASAN: What did they crucially miss?

JULIE PHILIPP: There are a lot of armchair quarterbacks these days pointing at different things Kodak could have done differently.

Obviously, their slowness to adapt digital is a big one. They actually invented the digital camera, but kind of stashed it away. Reports show that they were afraid others would see it, and they were still making so much money off film that they decided to hold off on that invention and keep the cash rolling in. And it was just too hard to turn a 100-year-old company around quickly enough.

The above is a perfect example of what happens when the decision-makers in a company are myopically focused on money. Kodak invents the digital camera then does not start to capitalize on it?!

Also, I was aware of another issue looming in the background. The chemicals used to manufacture film were getting harder to get and more expensive. The end-of-life of film was already on the horizon and Kodak should have started the transition to digital early just on that account. Shish....movies in most modern theaters today are digital!