Eastman Kodak tried your implied proposed strategy, of ignoring technological developments that undermine their core product. It didn't go so well. Naturally technology companies have learned from this and other past mistakes.
Eastman Kodak tried your implied proposed strategy, of ignoring technological developments that undermine their core product. It didn't go so well. Naturally technology companies have learned from this and other past mistakes.
Kodak developed a prototype digital camera in 1975. In 1990 they started selling digital cameras. They manufactured their own sensors.
How did they ignore technological advancements?
Having the shinyest toys is useless if you don't play with them.
They had the tech but didn't see the danger in it, they belived that the lower quality digital camera would fail and investing in them would mean exploring a new market and they choose the safe corporate move, buisness as usual.
Turns out that low quality but way more pratical and cheaper on the long run really sells
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/908575-one-of-job-s-busines...
“One of Job's business rules was to never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. " If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will," he said. So even though an Iphone might cannibalize sales of an IPod, or an IPad might cannibalize sales of a laptop, that did not deter him.”
Kodak did sell digital cameras but they were so scared of protecting their film business I don't think they went all in on digital and let the other camera companies take over.
I’m not sure this is the whole story.
Kodak operated in a region that was a manufacturing and technology hub until the mid 1900s. The region started to decline significantly in the 1960s. By the 1990s it was basically a ruins compared to the 1950s.
So by the time Kodak made this strategic mistake, I imagine they already would have had a hard time recruiting talent into that obviously dying region for a decade or so, and many people who were there already were actively leaving the region by that time.
I suspect that in the counterfactual where the region stayed as it was in the 1950s in terms of economic prosperity, Kodak probably could have successfully played catch up once it was clear where the game was going.
So yes they made a strategic mistake, but they did so while simultaneously “brain drain” bleeding out due to other unrelated factors.