Kodak and Fujifilm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 4

Kodak and Fujifilm - Essay Example Since 1976, Kodak captured large market of camera and film in US (85% and 90% respectively). Photofinishing processes of Kodak soon became industry standard in terms of quality. It always had competitive advantage over its competitors due to the operation and scope of its business. This assisted Kodak for having sustainable growth for around 90 years. However, from 1980s and 1990s, Kodak began to encounter problems in terms of revenues, marker share, technological explosion, and competitors (Schreiner, 2012). As Kodak strives for survival, its biggest competitor Fujifilm enjoys the renaissance of innovation. For Canon and Nikon, innovations with sensors, Fujifilm emerges as a genuine threat to Kodak. In 2010, Fujifilm maintained its place in Fortune Global 500. Even though, the company is now striving to keep up with its current position by diversifying into new similar businesses. Fujifilm was established in Japan in 1934. It has made its place as a leader in videotape, motion pictu re photography, floppy disk, and audio tape industries. It is also involved in manufacturing camcorders, still cameras, chemicals and paper, photofinishing equipment, information and imaging products for medical and office use markets. The company introduced dry plates, motion picture film, and photographic paper. While Kodak goes bankrupt on 13 January 2012, its long time competitor Fujifilm is flourishing fairly well. ... It was so hierarchical that low-level employees needed to wait for top-management in every situation. To get over this inflexible hierarchy, he made himself accessible, and visible and encouraged employees to take more responsibility. Leadership of Kodak has also been inconsistent. The strategy of the company changes with every new chief executive. The biggest management flaw at Kodak was their monopolistic attitude. On the other hand, Fujifilm was efficient in anticipating change and taking quick decisions. Fujifilm took advantage from the weaknesses of Kodak and snatched the market share in a short span of time (Kotter, 2012). Impact of Management Differences The execution strategy of Fujifilm is what gave it an edge over Kodak. In 1980s, when Fujifilm observed the omens of digital doom it established a three-step strategy. i. To earn as much revenues from the film business as possible ii. To prepare for converting to digital iii. To establish new business lines (The Economist, 201 2) Fujifilm looked for new venues for its specialization in film for instance, developing optical films for flat panel screens such as LCD. Since 2000, it invested approximately $4 billion in the business. It paid off very soon. In a short span of time, Fujifilm began to enjoy a market share of 100% in this area. CEO of Kodak, Fisher decided that its specialization lay in imaging. Therefore, he turned out digital cameras and offered it customer with a feature of posting and sharing pictures online. This production could have made Kodak more creative and nimble but he failed to outsource. Yet, Kodak managed to build a monumental business from digital camera but it persisted for only few years before the phones having camera wrecked it

Globalization and its affects on the State of Maine Research Paper

Globalization and its affects on the State of Maine - Research Paper Example Put simply, globalization is the idea that with trade barriers falling down and connections between countries (such as the internet, cheap and efficient transportation etc.) the location of a product’s consumer and producer no longer need to have a connection to each other. Maine, like virtually every other part of the world, has been significantly affected by globalization. Globalization has had both positive and negative effects on the economy and lifestyles of people living in Maine. On the one hand Maine has been spared many of the out and out relocations of jobs to outside of the state due to the impracticality of relocating those industries that other places, such as Michigan, have had to deal with, while on the other a global market has still driven prices down, hurting manufacturers. These same falling prices, however, have been beneficial to the working class people who are most harmed by jobs moving away. Furthermore most economic theories state that, in the long ter m, Industry Globalization leads to the most efficient distribution of jobs and manufacturing across the planet in terms of money cost. Basically it states that if a job can be done or a product produced for less cost somewhere else than it is currently being done, the job or production moves to that new place. In the case of America, the largest consumer society ever seen in all of history, the calculation usually involves three fundamental principles: cost of labor, location of raw materials, and cost of shipping and production (Bilgin, 2004). America has relatively high labor costs, especially when compared with emerging markets such as China or India, which is what prompts many industries to move away(Bilgin, 2004). Luckily for Maine, however, many of the industries are impractical to move because high shipping and transport costs would more than offset any savings made by reducing labor costs. Maine has a small but important steel industry, for instance (Madar, 2009). This indus try is naturally protected from being moved elsewhere because it has such incredibly low labor costs per ton of steel produced, so even though Chinese steel foundries can often get labor for about ten percent of the cost of labor in Maine, the cost of shipping that steel from China to the consumer market on the east coast of the United States still ends up costing more than steel produced in Maine, with its higher labor costs (Madar, 2009). This same principle holds true for two of Maine’s oldest and most well known industries, the lumber and paper industries. Both of these industries involve moving around an processing incredibly heavy raw materials (wood in both cases) and have very high tonnage of product per unit of labor ratios. This means that they are inherently somewhat protected from the effects of globalization, because taking the raw materials (lumber) from Maine, transporting it to another country for processing then returning it to a consumer market in and around Maine would lead to such amazingly higher cost than just leaving the manufacturing jobs, even with high labor costs, in Maine. Maine’s other ancient and venerable industry, the fishing industry, is likewise protected to a certain degree from globalization by its very nature. The raw materials for Maine’s fishing industry can obviously be found nowhere except off the coast of Maine. While it is possible to by many of