Kodak’s photography presentation and transformation

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

6. Kodak has been through some really tough times
since the rise of digital imaging.

8. In the late 1980s the company employed
about 140 000 people, today this figure has
gone down to less than 20 000.

9. The rise and decline of Kodak can to a large
extent be explained by using a framework
developed by Clayton Christensen at Harvard.

10. Christensen studied technological shifts, how
they happen and why established firms tend
to be overthrown when they occur.

11. He made a distinction between disruptive and
sustaining technologies.

12. A sustaining technology is one that improves the
performance of a product according to the attributes
that the established customer base appreciates.

13. It doesn’t matter if it is radical or incremental.

14. A disruptive technology on the other hand offers an
initially worse performance according to what
customers have appreciated.

15. At the same time it brings new performance
attributes such as simplicity or portability to the
marketplace.

16. Therefore it tends to prosper in new customer
segments and as it improves along the mainstream
dimensions, it eventually displaces the former
technology.

17. Established firms therefore miss the boat by
listening to their existing customers and by keep
moving up into increasingly sophisticated
segments.

18. It looks like this.

19. It attacks from below, becomes ’good enough’
and overthrows the established firms,
who’ve been listening to their customers.

20. This framework can help us to explain
both the rise and the fall of Kodak.

21. Kodak’s
introduction of
the roll film in
1888 is an
excellent
example of a
disruptive
innovation.

22. It fundamentally changed the role of
photos and the way they were used.

23. Prior to this,
people went to a
studio and had
their photo taken
by a professional
photographer.

24. The roll film
did not
compete
along the
image quality
dimension.

25. Instead, it
brought new
performance
attributes to the
marketplace.

26. Portability.

27. Simplicity.

28. Affordability.

29. This value
proposition
was very
different
from the one
that the
leading
photography
companies
offered back
then.

30. The leading photographic companies in the
U.S. were Anthony and Scovill (who merged
into Anthony & Scovill in 1901, later shortened
to Ansco). Their very successful businesses
were focused on meeting the needs of portrait
studios and serious amateurs.