Kodak

1
Kodak

• Building networks of alliances to create a
  competitive position in the imaging industry
• Adobe on PhotoCD software
• HP on ink-jet printing solutions
• IBM on optical storage products and Internet
  based image networking
• Microsoft on computer imaging software
• Sega on a PhotoCD compatible game system
• Sprint on new network services for image storage
  and exchange
• Wang on document imaging architecture

2
Kodak

• Kodak warning on earnings in fourth quarter
  Slowing demand (sluggish film sales), retailer
  inventory reductions (in anticipation of slow
  Christmas season), higher raw material
  costs,increasing investment in digital imaging,
  currency effects (decline in euro).
• Possible job cuts (continuing its restructuring
  efforts in 1997, slashed work force by a fifth)
• Still stands by its strategy of focus on digital
  imaging
• Problems shared by Polaroid and Xerox

Source Financial Times, Wall Street Journal
3

• Early 80s Vertically integrated centralized
  monolithic hierarchy
• Mid 80s Intense competitive pressures forced
  Kodak to reorganize and restructure
• 1990 Kodak outsources its large in-house IT
  operation.
• 1993 CEO Fisher focuses on core photographic
  business (with a future in digital imaging and
  divests chemical and pharmaceutical businesses

Source HBS case
4
Monsanto

• Changing focus From an agricultural chemical
  company to a producer of agricultural inputs and
  ultimately a producer of food ingredients
• Monsantos smarter products
• The new leaf potato, B.t. cotton, Roundup
  herbicide and no till farming
• Caught in the headlights of the genetic
  engineering debate

Source NY times, HBR, HBS case