The camera is one of the greatest inventions in human history. In its early stages, few people had access to camera's because they were expensive and not considered something to be used for recreational or personal use. George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak, changed that misconception when he improved and marketed Kodak camera, putting the camera into the hands of the common man. From twentieth century, due to Eastman Kodak's effort, camera became one of the daily necessities that a home should have. However, the surprising thing is that Eastman Kodak has filed for bankruptcy last month. This 131-year-old company was once the world's biggest camera maker and photo film producer. According to a 2005 case study for Harvard Business School, as late as 1976, Kodak captured 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S. However, Kodak declared $6.8 billion in debt and $5.1 billion in assets in this year (Hudson 2012). How could Eastman Kodak lost its market share and became on the edge of bankruptcy? This paper will focus on the cause of the decline of Kodak, and the main content will discuss the cause from three aspects, which are lag response to market change, wrong Strategic direction, and immature attitude toward market.
First of all, failure to analyze future market is Kodak's prior mistake. Probably many people thing Kodak's failure stems from the lack of digital technology. However, that is not true. Kodak created the first working prototype of a digital camera in 1975. The engineer behind that project, Steve Sasson, offered a memorable one-liner to the New York Times in 2008 when he said management's reaction to his prototype was, "That's cute " but don't tell anyone about it"(Anthony 2012). Films helped Kodak make huge profits in the past several decades, management still wanted to earn more profits through making films. Digital photography, as noted earlier, was not just a product, but a change in the entire process of capturing, displaying and transmitting images.
