MANAGEMENT

Thinking and Acting Strategically

Thinking and Acting Strategically

Eastman Kodak

Today's technological environment has brought many advantages for businesses to grow in a radically different way, but on the other has, rapidly changing nature of technology has also raised many challenges to some organizations and created a state-of-survival for even large organizations. It is a fact that Kodak, since its birth, has been leading the photography and imaging market as well as defeating its competitors. However, inception of Fuji films proved to be a phase of challenge for Kodak and dent the revenue of Kodak (Grant, 2010). The entry of Fuji film not just raised challenges for Kodak but also affected its market position that dropped from number one to number two. In addition, it was also seen in the recent past few years that technological development opened the doors of innovation in the market of photography and imaging by changing the photography or imaging mechanism and introduced digital cameras and photography equipments. This change was really a time to think for Kodak as the Kodak's basic business was film imaging based on chemical technology (Grant, 2010).

Eastman Kodak Company produces and markets a variety of professional and consumer imaging products. Kodak's products include digital cameras and accessories, inkjet printers, prepress equipment and consumables, scanners, and photographic films. The company also offers online imaging and wholesale photofinishing services. Kodak operates in, Europe, Africa; Middle East, Asia pacific, and the Americas. The products of the company are marketed under the umbrella brand name of Kodak (Datamonitor, 2011). The company reports its operations primarily under 3 segments, including FPEG (Film photofinishing and entertainment group), GCG (graphic communications group), and CDG (consumer digital imaging group).

Kodak's Competencies and Growth

Competencies

There is no doubt that Kodak has been efficiently utilizing its all resources in film as well as paper media market, which is generally considered as company's one of the major competencies. These capabilities of Kodak made the company to produce high quality film imaging products and ultimately developed a customer's perceived image for company's high quality products. In addition, the top management of the company brought many organizational changes, including transformation of the organizational structure from centralization to decentralization and development of strong mechanism of accountability (Grant, 2010). These organizational changes worked well and resulted in reduction of product life cycle. Further, Kodak's market image can also be considered as its competence because company is widely known for its crystal like management system.

It is also a fact that Kodak has its own research and development that enables company to manufacture digital photography parts. It can also be seen that cost pressure during the 1990s affected the style of business Kodak was having and forced Kodak to not to rely on its in-house manufacturing. Kodak's top management decided to outsource some of its business to its close business partners. Further, as an old film and imaging company remained successful to build its strong brand image that can be seen as company's distinctive ...