Kodak Bankruptcy: Some Kodak Moments….

Hi,

Firstly, Happy New Year!

Secondly, I think I should say something about this very historic and storied enterprise — Kodak. I have dug up some key events from its history and I think they are worth pondering.

•1975

–Invents first digital camera, but does not bring to market. Fears cannibalizing film. Has 95% market share in U.S. film.

•1984

–Declines to sponsor LA Olympics. Low cost Fuji wins contract.

•1994

–Introduces QuickTake digital camera. Sold through Apple

•1997

–Fuji has 17% market share of U.S. film

•2005

–Kodak ranks #1 in U.S. digital camera sales $5.7 B. But,  severe undercutting by Asian low cost manufacturers and several new entrants into the U.S. Kodak loses $60 on every digital camera sold.

•2006

–Kodak outsources manufacturing of digital cameras to Asia. First time outsourcing in its history.

•2007

–falls to #4 in U.S. digital camera sales.

•2010

–falls to #5 in U.S. with 7% market share. Tries to sell a lot of its patents to survive (hoping it will have a windfall like Nortel Networks).

•2012

–Contemplates bankruptcy

 

Some observations:

Invention is not innovation.

If you don’t cannibalize your own product, someone else will.

New technologies take a long time to have an impact in the market.

Reminds me of Xerox PARC.

 

Here are some questions to think about:

What role does invention play in innovation?

Should we place more emphasis on invention or innovation?

How can creators of new technologies capitalize on them?

What prevents creators of new technologies to build business models around them?

 

 

 

Innovation Challenges

Babson Executive Education recently put this out on their website:

Hear Prof. Jay Rao’s recent interviews on Making Innovation Work

As a professor I often find myself writing about ideas and possible solutions, but there are limits to how much one can gain from the written word. You can’t hear emphasis and see the degree of someone’s belief. There is just nothing quite like hearing someone’s ideas directly.

With that in mind, we’ll occasionally post audio and video material with our views of how to make innovation work. Here is our first video effort from three interviews we conducted with Mr. Nobuyuki Otsuka of the InterAmerican Development Bank. Being our first involvement in this type of media we’ll apologize in advance for the less than stellar quality of the video, but like everything entrepreneurial, the emphasis is on speeding the learning process.

1. My current research

2. Corporate Entrepreneurship in Latin America

3. Every community needs a common language for innovation