Christian Sandström holds a PhD from Chalmers
University of Technology, Sweden. He writes and speaks
about disruptive innovation and technological change.

Within only a few
years, the Swedish
company Facit went
from fantastic profits
into being close to
bankruptcy in the
early 1970s.

The shift to
electronics
was the
reason why
Facit made
those losses.

Facit’s CEO
Gunnar
Ericsson was
now blamed
for the
problems at
the
company.

Should Facit be
regarded as a
failure?

My answer is NO.

There are three
reasons for this:

1. All manufacturers
of mechanical
calculators got into
trouble in this shift.

Monroe…

Victor…

Burroughs…

Remington Rand…

Olivetti…

Olympia…

Marchant…

2. Established firms in
other industries have
with few exceptions
suffered greatly in
technological shifts
from mechanics to
electronics.

Typewriters…

When watches
became digital,
about 1000
Swiss watch
manufacturers
went out of
business in the
70s and 80s.

The music industry

The old
radio industry

Kodak had to fire thousands
and thousands of employees.

Many buildings in
Rochester, NY, were
blown into pieces.

In Munich, Germany,
AgfaPhoto was
demolished.

Konica left the industry after
trying to survive through a
merger with Minolta.

Polaroid is also resting in peace.

Hasselblad has been in deep trouble.

And so has Leica.

This can go on forever, I think the point is clear.

3. Once the calculator
industry became digital,
competition got fierce
and ’the great calculator
war’ broke out in the
1970s.

The calculators became cheaper, smaller and
better at a violent pace...

New models were launched all the time…

In 1969-1972, more than 20 firms
entered the industry…

Only a few years later, most of
them had left the industry…

Only Sharp, Texas Instruments, Casio and a
few others eventually survived…

Thus, if Facit would have survived the shift to
electronics, it wasn’t exactly paradise that
waited after the revolution...

Summing it up:

Facit can’t be regarded as a
failure. All other mechanical
calculator companies went
down, and the same thing has
happened in virtually every
industry that has been
digitized. Moreover, once the
shift happened, competition
became so fierce that many
electronic companies had to
leave the industry.

Photos taken at:
Åtvidabergs Bruks och Facit Museum, Sweden
http://brukskultur.atvidaberg.se/index2.html
Åssa Industri och Bil Museum, Sweden
http://www.assamuseet.se/
Thank You!

Image attributions

Find out more:
www.christiansandstrom.org