Snapshot Of A Humbled Giant

Snapshot Of A Humbled Giant When, one sunny weekend in July 2007, Eastman Kodak demolished Buildings 9 and 23 – disused facilities in "Kodak Park" near the US group's headquarters in Rochester, upstate New York – the local newspaper, the Democrat a simplistic interpretation of the group's recent trajectory – that its managers simply did not see digital technology coming and, when they did, turned a blind eye to its importance – is wrong. Defenders say the official coyness up to this point reflected two realities of the market in the 1990s. Second, it did not want to bet too publicly against its traditional consumer film business, until it could point to stronger profits from its longer-term investment in digital. Mr Fisher and his successors declined to comment for this series. Prof Shih points out, however, that Mr Fisher, Mr Carp and their senior executives believed they had a duty to "maximise how much you could earn out of the traditional business". Wall Street applied another brake to Kodak's digital evolution. She concluded they were "more attentive and positive" towards those companies that tried to extend and preserve the old technology. The competition, from rivals such as Japan's Fujifilm, the German-Belgian group Agfa-Gevaert and Britain's Ilford Photo, was eating into its dominant position. It was only as late as 1999 that Kodak's roll-film sales peaked. The contrast with the market and technology for digital photography, especially in the consumer area, was stark. Rick Braddock, a Kodak director since 1987, whose career spans Wall Street, online retailing and private equity, recalls that "the mindset of the company was ready for the challenge: it was 'Batten down the hatches'. But the way the market shifted was dramatically faster than we had anticipated or than I'd ever seen". Eastman wrote that he wanted his business to be able to create "a rapid succession of changes and improvements "It was denial. So when the directors decided to oust Whitmore (who died in 2004), they belatedly took the opportunity to appoint a technology expert – George Fisher, who had earned plaudits as chief executive of Motorola, then riding high as one of the most innovative US electronics companies. But as Kodak's official regulatory filings continued to emphasise through the 1990s, the group's products and services "competed with similar products and services of others". Frank Sklarsky, who joined Kodak from outside the industry in 2006 and served as chief financial officer under Mr Pérez until moving to Tyco International in 2010, says: "Kodak's core competence was in chemistry-based, continuous flow manufacturing; the digital business is very different: product transitions are much quicker. According to former employees, however, Kodak had not been shirking its duty to look into the future. Meanwhile, Kodak also launched "hybrid" products such as the photo CD and the standalone Picture Maker retail photo-printing kiosk. 01 megapixel images. In 1979, the firm put together a graphic timeline laying out roughly when Kodak's clients would make the transition to digital imaging, starting with government clients, moving through graphic businesses and ending, in about 2010, with retail consumers. In 1991, the group drew up a digital strategy which led it three years later to develop a digital camera – though it kept its brand off the device – with Apple, the firm whose mould-breaking products would help accelerate the analogue decline a decade later. But while these efforts yielded several of the patents Mr Pérez believes could yet be Kodak's salvation, they sucked in investment for little return. Bob LaPerle, who led teams assessing the impact of digital technologies in the early 1990s, says the board missed an opportunity when it replaced chief executive Colby Chandler in 1990 with Kay Whitmore, a relatively conservative 33-year veteran of the group. The blind spot was not his downfall – indeed, another person near to the company at the time recalls discussing the electronic future with the board under Whitmore. Snapshot Of A Humbled Giant Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 03/04/2012