KODAK. Saham ditutup bawah AS$1

WARISAN Kodak rentas 13 dekad bidang kamera dan fotografi.

Hari ini, kebanyakan gambar diambil dengan telefon dan dipertontonkan di Facebook, dan adalah sukar untuk mengingati bila jenama Kodak adalah lebih kuat berbanding laman media sosial. Kebanyakan pengguna iPhone remaja tidak pernah membeli segulung filem seumur hidup mereka! – REUTERS

KODAK. Saham ditutup bawah AS$1

WARISANNYA merentasi 13 dekad dan ia bermegah sebagai syarikat Amerika Syarikat (AS) yang banyak memperkenalkan ciptaan pertama di pasaran, tetapi Eastman Kodak, yang lebih sinonim dengan kamera dan fotografi, berkemungkinan kesuntukan pilihan dan waktu.

Kebimbangan terhadap masa depan syarikat itu memuncak Jumaat lalu, selepas ia melantik sebuah firma guaman terkenal dengan kes bankrap, menyebabkan sahamnya jatuh 54 peratus kepada 78 sen sesaham.

Sungguhpun Kodak berkata ia tidak berniat memfailkan muflis, hakikatnya ialah sahamnya ditutup di bawah AS$1, manakala permodalan pasaran mengecut kepada kurang AS$300 juta mencadangkan bahawa pelabur berani mati pun akan hilang keyakinan.

Gambar mula pudar pada September 2003. Jualan filem dijangka terkubur dan Kodak mengurangkan dividen sebanyak 70 peratus, berharap untuk meraih keanjalan ketika ia meningkat perbelanjaan ke atas pencetak dakwat jet dan komersial, peranti imej perubatan dan sistem digital lain. Ia berhenti melabur dalam filem tradisional.

Tahun berikutnya, jutawan Carl Icahn mengakhiri tugasnya yang hanya seketika, tetapi menguntungkan sebagai pemegang saham Kodak, berkata model perniagaan syarikat itu tidak akan berjaya, khususnya sejak ia memerlukan lonjakan sementara sumber pendapatan utama.

Pada Januari 2004, syarikat itu berkata ia akan mengurangkan kos dengan mengurangkan pengeluaran, memberhentikan 15,000 kakitangan untuk tempoh tiga tahun.

Kodak adalah nama ikonik dalam perniagaan AS. Sejarah syarikat itu bermula pada 1881 dengan penubuhan Eastman Dry Plate Company oleh pencipta George Eastman. Menjelang 1885 beliau memperkenalkan filem fotografi telus pertama. Kamera ‘Kodak’ memasuki pasaran pada 1888, dengan slogan, “Anda tekan butang – kami melakukan selebihnya.”

Hampir seabad kemudian – 1981– jualannya mencecah AS$10 bilion. Ia juga adalah peserta awal dalam gerakan kamera digital, dengan Sistem Kamera Digital Profesional pada 1991 yang membolehkan wartawan foto mengambil gambar elektronik dengan kamera dilengkapi pengesan 1.3 megapiksel.

Eksekutif veteran di Hewlett Packard, Antonio Perez, menyertai syarikat itu pada 2003 dan menjadi Ketua Eksekutif dua tahun kemudian. Perez bertanggungjawab dalam peralihan Kodak kepada peranti dan perkhidmatan digital, berharap dapat membantu dalam kemerosotan permintaan terhadap filem.

Tetapi ada yang mengatakan ia sudah terlambat, kerana pengguna sudah selesa dengan kamera digital, yang membolehkan gambar diambil dengan mudah tanpa filem atau perlu mencetaknya.

Hari ini, kebanyakan gambar diambil dengan telefon dan dipertontonkan di Facebook, dan adalah sukar untuk mengingati bila jenama Kodak adalah lebih kuat berbanding laman media sosial. Kebanyakan pengguna iPhone remaja tidak pernah membeli segulung filem seumur hidup mereka! – REUTERS

The Fall of Kodak: Lessons Learned
1/23/2012 by: Tomi Ahonen
2009 - 2011 Bright Side Of News

I am sure we are all a little sad of the passing of Kodak. The company filed for bankrupcy and just like American Airlines, they have failed to adopt to actual demands of the marketplace. Some of us of a certain age have piles of Kodak slides and snaps, even old Kodak cameras around the place.

Hearing about Kodak's resignation and demise also got me thinking about Nokia, and indeed other organizations and industries that struggle and fail as they were unable to adjust to what were them an ambiguous world.

The Coming Age of an Uncertain World

When faced with an ambiguous world some move into that world, and embrace it to understand it, listen deeply and think very hard about transformation - how to transform, how to design for transformation. This is a very hard thing to do and few do it well - LEGO being an example of the few. And why is that? As Carlota Perez argues in her book Technological Revolution and Financial Capital,

"When the economy is shaken by a powerful set of new opportunities with the emergence of the next technological revolution, society is still strongly wedded to the old paradigm and its institutional framework. Suddenly in relation to the new technologies, the old habits and regulations become obstacles, the old services and infrastructures are found wanting, the old organizations and institutions inadequate. A new context must be created; a new ‘common sense’ must emerge and propagate."

There is indeed deep institutional resistance to real change. This is due to the voices of fear, cynicism and prejudice. And, as the forces of disruption increases often the resistance of organizations under threat does not abate but intensifies, until flailing against this unknown or misunderstood enemy they exhaust themselves.

It's why Ambiguity is the first principle of NSL. You can read briefly about the other six here - 6 challenges for a non-linear world. With ambiguity there are 5 key points:

1. Accept the uncertainties of an ambiguous world and become master of them.
2. Stepping back - seeing the world more holistically - as a system
3. It requires deep listening
4. To move from being unaware to aware
5. To seek new patterns that "make sense" even if they challenge pre-conceived ideas, positions and ways of doing things.

To be a little more expansive in NO Straight Lines (Paperback Edition, Kindle Digital) I wrote the following:

"In many ways ambiguity is the output of our current dilemma, but for that very reason it must also be a defining principle. When we individually and collectively live in an age of uncertainty, we must all become masters of managing uncertainty. As individuals or organizations we need to demonstrate the ability to face the future openly; we have to replace fear of the unknown with curiosity. We need to become aware of what is around us. To do that requires a step change in learning and self-improvement - this is achieved through continuous contemplation and self-reflection which ultimately enables the mastery of an aware self/organization, with the motivation to pursue truly motivated goals.

There is a need to accept a lack of control, and of uncertainty, not only being prepared to accept being taken outside of one’s comfort zone but deliberately seeking it out - the consequence of which is a more disciplined mind or organizational culture, that is now capable of strong creative and conceptual thinking."

If you take LEGO for example, it is easy to see how the company turned the tide around:

1. They had the wisdom to recognize the old model of commerce was broken
2. They had the courage to explore new and emergent means by which to create a new sustainable business
3. They listened deeply and evolved an internal ability to critically appraise where they needed to get to
4. They recognized the important patterns in co-creation and how they could have real benefits for R&D, organizational capability, commercial models and marketing
5. This enabled them to evolve to a new more sustainable economic / social / organizational model

The Dangers of Trying to Innovate Whilst Looking in the Rear View Mirror
Om Malik writes:

"As my friend Pip Coburn says, turnarounds never turn. Kodak has been in restructuring mode for 15 years - cutting headcount, closing factories, tightening belts and squeezing rocks for blood. In other words - the company isn’t fat in a traditional sense. But why none of its strategies worked was because the company took too long and sat on its duff watching digital photography come and eat it for a mid-day snack even though Kodak R&D helped with the digital photo revolution when it launched the first digital camera in 1975."

And yet they failed to do what one of their major competitors - FujiFilm did - embrace digital with both arms and is now thriving. And when Kodak finally did embrace digital in 1993 it did with hesitance that comes when companies are afraid to cannibalize their existing businesses for the sake of the future.

Disruption Does Not Asks for Permission

Nokia said it would never release a touch screen phone, so someone else did - a software company. In my journey in writing NO Straight Lines, I have seen this organizational myopia as a constant red thread. So I argue to survive organizations have to disrupt themselves before someone else does it to them. Or as legendary Arthur C. Clarke said,

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

Malik writes,

"Anyone remember the Nokia 770? That phone could have been Nokia’s future, instead it is forgotten. Nokia defined itself by a certain kind of a product - the 12-key phone. People at Nokia talked about a multimedia mobile computer, but it couldn’t look beyond those 12 keys. It took Apple and Google to show Nokia how to re-imagine the phone."

Standing at the Edge of the Adaptive Range of Industrial World

We have arrived at the edge of the adaptive range of our industrial world. Our world is being overwhelmed by a trilemma of social, organizational and economic complexity. We are in transit from a linear world to a non-linear one. Consequently we are faced with an increasingly pressing and urgent problem, WHAT COMES NEXT?

And also we are therefore presented with a design challenge: HOW do we create better societies, more able organisations and, more vibrant and equitable economies relevant to the world we live in today? No Straight Lines read/write project presents a new logic and inspiring plea for a more human centric world that argues we now have the possibility to truly transform our world, to be more resilient, to be more relevant to us both personally and collectively, socially cohesive, sustainable, economically vibrant and humane, through the tools, capabilities, language and processes at our fingertips.

The key to unlocking this opportunity, so we can design for transformation is through understanding the interlocking concepts of the six key principles of No Straight Lines, these are:

1. Ambiguity
2. Adaptiveness
3. Participatory cultures and tools
4. Openness
5. Craftsmanship
6. Epic - designing for transformation

It means we can then ask this question: How do we find the best possible solution to seemingly intractable problems, and be able to answer them?

Tags:

Kodak, Carlota Perez, LEGO, LEGO blocks, Nokia, Nok, NSL, No Straight Lines, Om Malik, GigaOm, Pip Coburn, FujiFilm, Nokia 770, NSL Store, disruption, 12-keys, technology disruption, tech, market disruption, evolve, die

Source- http://www.brightsideofnews.com/print/2012/1/23/the-fall-of-kodak-lessons-learned.aspx