New Straits Times Online
05 February 2012
www.nst.com.my/opinion/editorial/kodak-s-last-days-1.42251
Editorial
Kodak’s last days
The folding of Eastman Kodak serves an important lesson: firms must
adapt or die
AT A time when most people in the developed and developing world own a
digital camera or a mobile phone with camera function, it is hard to
believe that the company that invented and produced the world’s first
digital camera has gone bankrupt. Indeed, the Eastman Kodak Company is
more than just a 131-year-old producer of photographic film and
paraphernalia; its invention and production of simple cameras,
photographic film, and photographic paper in the late 19th century
revolutionised photography for the masses. Generations of happy memories
are immortalised on Kodak paper. Photography would not be what it is
today, were it not for Kodak.
So, how is it possible for a company whose shares in 1997 stood at US$93
per share, to take such a tumble, that, a week after it filed for
bankruptcy on Jan 19, its shares stood at just 36 cents (RM1.11) per
share? To attribute Kodak’s fall to “the march of modern technology”
would be to present only a half-developed picture. Kodak is in this
position not because it was unable to innovate. In fact, it was the
earliest innovator; a lot of the technology that consumers enjoy in
Apple, BlackBerry producer Research in Motion, and HTC products are
allegedly technology created and patented by Kodak, and for which it is
suing these companies for patent infringements. But, as part of its
bankruptcy restructuring, Kodak now has to put its digital-imaging
patents up for sale. Analyses of Kodak’s performance have it that
although Kodak was good at research and patenting, it was not good at
commercialising its products.
Perhaps the earliest indicator of where it went wrong was in 1975, when
Kodak produced the first digital camera, but then dropped it for fear
that it would threaten its photographic film business. It is said that
Kodak was so tied to its film business that it did not prepare for the
future soon enough. And by the time it decided to, it was too late. In
many ways, Kodak’s demise exemplifies the demise of many things whose
death results from the inability to make changes in time. Darwin’s
evolutionary theory, more easily remembered through the phrase “survival
of the fittest”, stresses that the ability to adapt will ensure
survival. So, although Kodak has served society well in the past, in
business, sentimentality won’t keep you alive.
Whether it is in business, or politics, or print media, we all need to
prepare for change well before change happens; whether we like it or
not. Heed this warning: adapt or die.
---
Albert Peres
afpe...@3129.ca
416.660.0847
