Kodak and Fujifilm
Assignment 1: Kodak and Fujifilm Due Week 4 and worth 300 points Access articles about the history, business approaches, management, and marketing of Eastman Kodak and Fujifilm. Eastman Kodak has been a developer and pioneer of photographic films for over 130 years. Although it invented the digital camera, the company was unprepared for the rapid changes in new technologies and filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2012. Fujifilm, a Japanese competitor, on the other hand, has been successful in the U.S. and global markets. Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you: 1.Describe the history and core business of each company. 2.Compare and contrast the approach to management that each company has pursued in order to embrace innovation. 3.Determine what other management differences have impacted the relative success of Kodak and Fujifilm. Provide specific examples to support your response. 4.Evaluate each company’s approach to ethics and social responsibility and the impact those approaches have had on each company’s profitability. 5.Discuss the extent to which management of both companies adapted to changing market conditions. 6.Recommend three (3) ways any company should build in flexibility to back up its decision-making process in order to adapt to changing market conditions. 7.Use at least three (3) quality references. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements: •Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions. •Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length. The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are: •Describe the primary functions of management (planning, organizing, leading, controlling) and the associated skills, tools, and theoretical approaches that can be used to accomplish these functions. •Explain the principal theories and the various approaches to management that have evolved over time and their application to current management situations. •Explain the decision-making process management uses to develop viable courses of action to a variety of management situations. •Use technology and information resources to research issues in management concepts. •Write clearly and concisely about management concepts using proper writing mechanics.
Kodak and Fujifilm
Name:
Institution
Kodak and Fujifilm
Kodak
Kodak, initially known as Eastman Kodak is an America company that dealt with production and sell of film related products. Its founder Eastman Kodak started it in 1888. He had been on vacation and his friends asked him to bring them a picture of his trip, making him become interested in developing the camera. At the time, Kodak was the giant of photography. It was the Google and Facebook of its days with a market share of more than 80% in the United States by early 1960s. This is because; Kodak had managed to simplify the hustle of filming as art and had given consumers the power of the simple camera into their hands. Their slogan “You press the button, we do the rest” related with everyone and success was an assured fete. However, due to poor management calls in relation to the technological revolution in the film industry over time, Kodak found itself in trouble having filled for bankruptcy in early 2012.
Fujifilm
Fujifilm is a Japanese company that was started nearly half a century later after Eastman Kodak. It also deals with film and photographic related products. At the time of its launch, Fujifilm primarily dealt with production of motion pictures, dry plates, and photographic papers. However, due to good and visionary management, Fujifilm Company managed to transform its earlier struggles in the market with less that 15% of the United States film and camera market share to more than 40% in the photofinishing market alone. The management identified its strength and weakness and built on the opportunities while ironing out threats that were disadvantaging them in the market (Peitz & Belleflamme, 2009).
This paper is, therefore, a comparison of the similarity and differences as it pertains to the management of these two companies and how certain leadership calls affected their long-term results.
The Approach to Management
When it comes to innovation, the results are always the same i.e. either one adapts to the changes or they are shaped out. Sadly, when it comes to Kodak, innovation was what made it fail as a company. The leadership at the time was complacent and slow to adaptation of innovation. Despite the fact that Kodak had a well-funded research lab, the leadership was complacent to suggestions by the team and their belief in monopolizing the industry did not do them any good (Rajagopal, 2007). They believed that their products were perfect and did not require any improvement or changes that proved to be a bad call to make. This is because even with perfect products, the company’s success can only be guaranteed by the improvement of the same.
The leadership of the company was also located in one area i.e. Rochester, New York. This meant that even with the changing market and need to embrace technological innovation in their products; the comfort of the city blinded them of the need to have a feel of what their competitors were offering. On the other hand, however, Fujifilm was a company whose leadership was ready to embrace innovation and diversify the product line of the company. In the late 1980s, Fujifilm management realized that the new venture in photography was going to be digital. By analyzing this statistic, they decided to put in place measures that could ensure the company’s existence would not be affected by this technology and decided to invest in digital technology (Peitz & Belleflamme, 2009). They would later on partner with digital-based companies such as in the medical diagnostics filming market thus ensuring the survival of the company many years later.
Management Differences that have Impacted the Relative Success of Kodak and Fujifilm
When it came to success, the two companies had different approaches to achieving the same. Unlike the founder of Kodak, most of the leaders in charge of the company during the late 1980s and early 1990s were unwilling to come out of the company’s comfort zone (Cheverton, 2000). They believed too much in the brand name of Kodak and purely concentrated on the extensive marketing and its international distribution network. The only investment back into the company at the time was in towards its marketing department. This notion also cloud their judgment when it came to Kodak partnership with other companies. The management saw such partnership as a venture where the other partners were the ones to benefit from such unions hence never used to consult or weight in their suggestions or opinions when it came to strategic decision of the future of the company.
On the other hand, Fujifilm from the start knew what they wanted. Their goal and objective were to control as muc...