BUSINESS 101 What Went Wrong With Kodak?

Posted: 25 Mar 2012 | 6:00 am

From industrial wunderkind to bankruptcy, most any business should take a look at the saga of what want very very wrong with the collapse of the once admired Kodak.

A useful analysis on the subject has come out of Knowledge@Wharton on where the train when off the tracks and plunged into perpetual purgatory.

Despite a roll call of innovations and leading technology, company leadership which was unable to change with the markets is the main catalyst for disaster.

Despite heavy investment into R & D (research and development), interaction with management at a higher level caused a short circuit.

There was no attempt to match business strategies with new products or establish needs (case in point is Apple - who really needs an iPad, very few. But who really want's one. Almost everyone).

Ultimately the company kept a foot in its comfort zone of old comfortable product rather than heading into the brace new digital world.

Lessons learned. Keep evaluating, changing and adapting business models on a fast track basis. Snooze and you lose or else end up in the land of the big sleep.

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