Question

Kodak Fails to Focus on the Big Picture

The closing case focuses on Kodak and their failure to innovate through the transition from analog to digital technology. It appears Kodak had the resources to innovate and they recognized the coming transition but incorrectly evaluated the needs and desires of the consumer. In addition, members of the company feared change and resisted change efforts. For these reasons, Kodak went from a top 20 Fortune 500 company to bankruptcy in 2012.

Management Update: There are signs Kodak may survive. During bankruptcy, Kodak put Eastman Park up for sale. Eastman Park is a giant industrial complex built in the early 1900s to meet demand for the company’s photographic and film products. In 2015, the company took the park off the market and turned it into a separate company division. With a focus on clean technology, over 60 companies have key operations on the site.

Case Question: Explain how – theoretically, anyway – making “change innovations” in each of the following Areas of Organizational Change might have helped Kodak ease the severity of the conditions that led it to bankruptcy and the challenges facing it now that it’s emerged from bankruptcy:  changing organization structure and design, changing people and attitudes, and changing processes.

Answer 1

With respect to the changing organizational structure and design, Kodak could implement change innovations to make the organization structure and its design to be more lean, adapting and responsive to the change taking place in the business environment. Apart from the benefits of the organizational reengineering, streamlined process and bringing out people from their comfort zone, Kodak could find new innovative ways to come up with incremental upgrade or disruptive technologies that could help the Kodak to maintain competitive advantage and sustainability.

With respect to the changing people and attitudes, Kodak should renegotiate with people regarding their loss of power, counsel their employees going through the anxieties and organize training & development program for those who feared for their jobs. Here, innovation could help Kodak change the attitude of people and make them participate in change. It will give a higher probability to succeed rather filing a bankruptcy and facing other problems.

With respect to the changing processes, change innovations will make processes to be more streamlined and productive according to the changing needs. It will make Kodak to capitalize on new opportunities rather succumbing to the changing business environment and internal conflict.

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