Blog #3 - Developing Strategic Options (Part 2)

In looking to develop a strategic vision and plan, companies must be aware of the changing landscape in which they are trying to succeed. As discussed by Clayton Christensen in his book, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, he points out a number of examples where companies specifically missed the advent or evolution of a technology directly connected to their business. One example, that was only mentioned in passing as part of a table of established technologies vs the disruptive technology, is the advent of digital camera technology.

While the advent of digital cameras was slow to be adopted and traditional film is still used in some cases, the biggest lesson about the switch in technology comes from the understanding that Kodak, the undisputed leader in the film industry, developed and own the rights to the first digital sensors. As a result, the main cause of Kodak’s fall from grace was not only digital camera tech, but the lack of foresight to understand their own invention and/or the ego to think they were too big to be affected by something their own engineers developed.

Declaring bankruptcy in 2012, a number of business publications have spent the better part of the last decade discussing where Kodak went wrong. Some blame the economic downturn in 2008 as the final step in the companies decline (1), others point to Kodak’s willingness to try and kill the digital film movement to prevent sales losses of their traditional film department (2), still others blame the move from independent cameras to cameras as part of smartphone (3). Taking all of these possibilities into account, the one idea from Christensen’s book really rings true – Failed Ideas vs Failed Businesses.

Kodak had come up with the idea for digital film and even promoted it in scientific and commercial uses but refused to identify the possibility and customer want for the technology over the historic business model. Whether this was a specific strategy of leadership and it back fired, or just a massive blind spot of the overall market, Kodak’s business strategy failed them.

1 https://mashable.com/2012/01/20/kodak-digital-missteps/

2 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/leading-innovation-through-the-chicanes/

3 https://hbr.org/2016/07/kodaks-downfall-wasnt-about-technology