By Michael Hiltzik
December 4, 2011
Like the passing of distinguished individuals, the passing of great corporations should prompt us to ponder the transience of earthly glory.
So let's pay our respects to Eastman Kodak, which at this writing appears to be a shutter-click from extinction.
It's hard to think of a company whose onetime dominance of a market has been so thoroughly obliterated by new technology. Family snapshots? They're almost exclusively digital now, and only a tiny fraction ever get printed on paper.
Kodak's decline is of a different order from GM's. The latter still manufactures a product with a huge market demand; it just got sloppy and inefficient at turning out its cars and trucks. That's why the federal government, not to mention GM's unions and other stakeholders, thought a dramatic restructuring might put it back on its feet.
Kodak, however, markets a process technology; and as the chemistry of film has yielded to digital electronics, consumer demand for Kodak's traditional products has evaporated. A similar transition afflicts newspapers, book publishers, movie studios, broadcasters and record labels today, but the issues for those industries are different yet.
Their business models are under pressure because they're dependent on outdated distribution technologies; but their core products (information, entertainment) are still very much in demand.
So Kodak has faced a tougher challenge than automakers or content producers. Still, it has met the challenge ham-handedly. This is characteristic of companies that have enjoyed what one might think of as success on a tragic scale.
As late as 1976, Kodak commanded 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S., according to a 2005 case study for Harvard Business School. Such seemingly unassailable competitive positions tend to foster unimaginative executive cultures, and Kodak's was no exception.
Even after Fuji Photo crept into the U.S. market with lower-priced film and supplies, Kodak refused to believe Americans would ever desert its sacred brand. Complacently, the company spurned the chance to become the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; the bid went instead to Fuji, which exploited its sponsorship to win a permanent foothold in the marketplace.
Then came digital. Far from scorning the new technology, Kodak ramped up research and development to nearly 10% of sales in the mid-1980s and integrated digital features into its product lines, including video systems, scanners and photo enhancement software.
But its executives couldn't foresee a future in which film had no role in image capture at all, nor come to grips with the lower profit margins or faster competitive pace of high-tech industries. At one meeting with Microsoft's Bill Gates to discuss integrating Kodak's photo CDs with Windows, Kodak Chairman Kay Whitmore fell asleep.
Fisher reached out to Microsoft and other new consumer merchandisers. But Fisher never conceived of an entirely filmless world, either.
Under Fisher's successor, Daniel Carp, Kodak moved headlong into digital photography, but at a cost. In 2001 it held the No. 2 spot in U.S. digital camera sales (behind Sony), but its executives acknowledged it was losing $60 on every camera sold. By last year it ranked fourth. And it can hardly escape the company's notice that an ever-smaller percentage of digital pictures are being taken on digital cameras, as opposed to cellphones and tablets.
Kodak's biggest revenue score of 2010 was $838 million it collected from patent licensing, evidently including a settlement it reached with LG after suing the South Korean company for patent infringement. Through the first three quarters of this year, the same category produced zero. But Perez is still hoping for a big score from another patent sale.
It may be premature to write Kodak off. After all, the company does have more than a century's experience in consumer marketing and a technology portfolio potentially worth billions. But companies that can remake themselves to survive changes on the scale of what Kodak confronts are rare indeed.
IBM has done so, and General Electric, but not many others.
The circle of life in business is a natural phenomenon, the lesson of which shouldn't be overlooked by companies that seem to have cemented themselves into permanent spots at the top of the world today — including Apple, Google and Facebook. The lesson is: Nothing lasts forever.
==========================
擁有131年歷史的伊士曼柯達公司（Eastman Kodak），2012/01/19日在紐約聲請破產保護
==========================
柯達與富士攜手創造了傳統銀鹽膠片時代的輝煌。柯達發明了膠捲，並一直引領著這個時代，但在數碼轉型上卻比富士行動遲緩，致使目前陷入了前所未有的困境。這兩家公司有很多共同點。他們都在本土市場占據著准壟斷地位：柯達在美國，富士在日本。美日兩國1990年代的貿易摩擦也源於柯達對富士的打壓。
到1976年，柯達在美國膠卷和相機銷量中的占比已經分別達到90%和85%。直到1990年代，柯達一直都是全球五大最有價值品牌之一。
隨後，數碼影像技術開始取代膠片，智能手機也開始取代照相機。柯達的收入和利潤分別在1996和1999年達到巔峰，分別為160億和25億美元。分析師普遍預計其2011年的收入為62億美元。該公司最近發佈的2011財年第三季度財報顯示，當季虧損2.22億美元，成為3年內第9次季度虧損。1988年，柯達的全球員工總數超過14.5萬人，而最近的統計數據僅為當時的十分之一。其股價也在過去一年間暴跌了近90%。
他們都預見到變革的來臨。柯達前高管、羅徹斯特大學西蒙商學院教授拉里‧馬特森(Larry Matesson)記得，他曾在1979年撰寫過一份非常精準的報告，預測了市場的不同部分將如何從膠片時代轉向數碼時代，首先是政府勘測機構，隨後是專業攝影領域，最後則是主流市場，到2010年將全面普及。他的誤差只有幾年。
兩家公司都意識到數碼影像業務自身的利潤並不會十分豐厚。馬特森說：“精明的生意人得出結論：因為投入1美元在膠片上面能產生70美分的利潤，而投入到數碼影像上則最多產生5美分，所以最好不要急著過渡。”兩家公司都不得不適應變化，不過柯達的動作更為緩慢。
正如曾為柯達公司提供建議的哈佛商學院的羅莎貝斯•莫斯•坎特所說，柯達公司一心追求完美的產品，而完美產品的創制、商用及修整一系列思路具有很高的技術含量，這些柯達公司卻並不關心。公司所在城鎮只有柯達一家公司，這也其不利。坎特表示，該公司的老闆們很少聽從外界的建議。在決定擴大經營範圍之後，柯達 甚至用了幾年的時間才完成了第一次收購。坎特說，該公司獲得了可觀的風險投資，但是從未投入足夠多的錢以取得突破性進展。
柯達的運氣也不好。在研究用在膠片中的化學製劑時，柯達獲得了數千種化學製品，並期望這些可以轉而用於製造藥物。但其制藥部門經營不善，90年代就被出售了。【跨足製藥業但此行業風險甚高】
富士的業務轉換更為成功。膠片有點像皮膚，兩者都含有膠質。就像相片由於氧化而褪色，化妝品公司使民眾相信，抗氧化劑可以使皮膚受到保護。在富士的20萬 種化學合成物的名錄中，4000種與抗氧化劑有關。該公司從而建立起名叫艾詩緹（ASTALIFT）的化妝品產品線。該品牌目前在亞洲地區有售，並將於今 年拓展到歐洲市場。 【跨足化妝品業此行業需要行銷】
富士膠片還為其在膠片上的專業技能找到了新的出路，比如說，為LCD平板螢幕製造光學膜。2000年以來，富士已經在這個領域投入超過40億美元，並已經取得回報。在一種可以擴大LCD螢幕的可視角度的光學膜上，富士的市場佔有率達到100%。【跨足薄膜光學領域】
在1993到1999年領導柯達公司的喬治費舍爾認為，柯達的專業領域在成像而不是化學製品上。明智的老闆會利用這個主意做出成類似FACEBOOK的網站，費舍爾卻掙扎著用這個想法來套該公司的“剃鬚刀模型”：柯達出售便宜的相機並以昂貴的膠片盈利（就像吉列公司以刀片盈利，而不是剃鬚刀）。這個模型顯然不適用於數碼相機，雖然柯達最後還是利用數碼相機取得了大量收入，但是幾年之後就被有攝像頭的手機取代。 柯達也未能正確認知新興市場。該公司曾希望中國崛起的中產階級將買很多膠片。一段很短的時間內，他們確實買了很多，但是這些中產階級很快發現，數碼相機更酷。許多人從沒有相機直接過渡到數碼相機。
柯達的領導層也是反復無常，經營策略隨新任的首席執行官而變動。最新的一次發生在2005年，彭安東接掌帥印後，專注於將該公司轉換為數碼沖印領域的巨頭。他還試圖利用公司海量的知識產權賺錢，於是有了這次和蘋果的官司。
在富士膠片中，技術的更迭也引發了內部權力鬥爭，起初堅持膠片業務、無視危機迫近的一些人占了上風。但最後的贏家是古森重隆。2000年以來，古森在40個子公司上花了90億美元。他大幅縮減開支、裁退員工。在18個月時間裏，由於貶值的影響，以及裁退、縮編多餘的經銷商、產品 開發實驗室、管理者和研究人員，古森的重建耗費超過了2500億日元（33億美元）。古森說道：「那是一段痛苦的經歷，但是按之前的情形發展下去，沒人能倖存。所以我們不得不重建經營模式。只有適應環境的變化才能生存，如果不變的話就不會有未來。」
儘管由於大額支出而弱化，這種事先規避的行為並不是日本企業的典型案例。日本管理諮詢之父大前研一表示，很少有日本企業家會迅速行動，大額裁剪和繼續瘋狂支出。 對古森來說，這樣做意味著與親手提拔他的前任背道而馳，這在日本是很大的禁忌。不過，大前研一評估到，日本企業有長期經營的文化，這意味著股東對於企業的 短期表現很少向管理層施壓，並且能容忍企業持有巨額現金，所以富士膠片才能按著古森的想法行事。美國的股東可能沒有那麼耐心。結果令人驚訝，柯達表現得像 一個墨守成規、拒絕變化的日本公司，而富士膠片則像一個靈活機動的美國公司。
古森說，柯達對它的市場策略和品牌效應太自信了，以至於想用簡單的方法度過危機。上個十年，柯達試圖購買現成的公司而不是自己花時間和金錢研發技術。它也未能充分轉型，古森表示：「柯達想要成為一個數碼影像公司，但那是個小生意，供不起那麼大的企業。」
富士成為一個以影像、資訊、檔處理三大業務為核心的多元化公司，在醫療影像/生命科學、檔處理、印刷、高性能材料(平板液晶顯示材料、半導體電子材料、民用及工業用油墨)和光學元器件等領域均處於主導地位，而傳統膠片業務只占總業務的6％。
December 4, 2011
Like the passing of distinguished individuals, the passing of great corporations should prompt us to ponder the transience of earthly glory.
So let's pay our respects to Eastman Kodak, which at this writing appears to be a shutter-click from extinction.
It's hard to think of a company whose onetime dominance of a market has been so thoroughly obliterated by new technology. Family snapshots? They're almost exclusively digital now, and only a tiny fraction ever get printed on paper.
Kodak's decline is of a different order from GM's. The latter still manufactures a product with a huge market demand; it just got sloppy and inefficient at turning out its cars and trucks. That's why the federal government, not to mention GM's unions and other stakeholders, thought a dramatic restructuring might put it back on its feet.
Kodak, however, markets a process technology; and as the chemistry of film has yielded to digital electronics, consumer demand for Kodak's traditional products has evaporated. A similar transition afflicts newspapers, book publishers, movie studios, broadcasters and record labels today, but the issues for those industries are different yet.
Their business models are under pressure because they're dependent on outdated distribution technologies; but their core products (information, entertainment) are still very much in demand.
So Kodak has faced a tougher challenge than automakers or content producers. Still, it has met the challenge ham-handedly. This is characteristic of companies that have enjoyed what one might think of as success on a tragic scale.
As late as 1976, Kodak commanded 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S., according to a 2005 case study for Harvard Business School. Such seemingly unassailable competitive positions tend to foster unimaginative executive cultures, and Kodak's was no exception.
Even after Fuji Photo crept into the U.S. market with lower-priced film and supplies, Kodak refused to believe Americans would ever desert its sacred brand. Complacently, the company spurned the chance to become the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; the bid went instead to Fuji, which exploited its sponsorship to win a permanent foothold in the marketplace.
Then came digital. Far from scorning the new technology, Kodak ramped up research and development to nearly 10% of sales in the mid-1980s and integrated digital features into its product lines, including video systems, scanners and photo enhancement software.
But its executives couldn't foresee a future in which film had no role in image capture at all, nor come to grips with the lower profit margins or faster competitive pace of high-tech industries. At one meeting with Microsoft's Bill Gates to discuss integrating Kodak's photo CDs with Windows, Kodak Chairman Kay Whitmore fell asleep.
Fisher reached out to Microsoft and other new consumer merchandisers. But Fisher never conceived of an entirely filmless world, either.
Under Fisher's successor, Daniel Carp, Kodak moved headlong into digital photography, but at a cost. In 2001 it held the No. 2 spot in U.S. digital camera sales (behind Sony), but its executives acknowledged it was losing $60 on every camera sold. By last year it ranked fourth. And it can hardly escape the company's notice that an ever-smaller percentage of digital pictures are being taken on digital cameras, as opposed to cellphones and tablets.
Kodak's biggest revenue score of 2010 was $838 million it collected from patent licensing, evidently including a settlement it reached with LG after suing the South Korean company for patent infringement. Through the first three quarters of this year, the same category produced zero. But Perez is still hoping for a big score from another patent sale.
It may be premature to write Kodak off. After all, the company does have more than a century's experience in consumer marketing and a technology portfolio potentially worth billions. But companies that can remake themselves to survive changes on the scale of what Kodak confronts are rare indeed.
IBM has done so, and General Electric, but not many others.
The circle of life in business is a natural phenomenon, the lesson of which shouldn't be overlooked by companies that seem to have cemented themselves into permanent spots at the top of the world today — including Apple, Google and Facebook. The lesson is: Nothing lasts forever.
==========================
擁有131年歷史的伊士曼柯達公司（Eastman Kodak），2012/01/19日在紐約聲請破產保護
==========================
柯達與富士攜手創造了傳統銀鹽膠片時代的輝煌。柯達發明了膠捲，並一直引領著這個時代，但在數碼轉型上卻比富士行動遲緩，致使目前陷入了前所未有的困境。這兩家公司有很多共同點。他們都在本土市場占據著准壟斷地位：柯達在美國，富士在日本。美日兩國1990年代的貿易摩擦也源於柯達對富士的打壓。
到1976年，柯達在美國膠卷和相機銷量中的占比已經分別達到90%和85%。直到1990年代，柯達一直都是全球五大最有價值品牌之一。
隨後，數碼影像技術開始取代膠片，智能手機也開始取代照相機。柯達的收入和利潤分別在1996和1999年達到巔峰，分別為160億和25億美元。分析師普遍預計其2011年的收入為62億美元。該公司最近發佈的2011財年第三季度財報顯示，當季虧損2.22億美元，成為3年內第9次季度虧損。1988年，柯達的全球員工總數超過14.5萬人，而最近的統計數據僅為當時的十分之一。其股價也在過去一年間暴跌了近90%。
他們都預見到變革的來臨。柯達前高管、羅徹斯特大學西蒙商學院教授拉里‧馬特森(Larry Matesson)記得，他曾在1979年撰寫過一份非常精準的報告，預測了市場的不同部分將如何從膠片時代轉向數碼時代，首先是政府勘測機構，隨後是專業攝影領域，最後則是主流市場，到2010年將全面普及。他的誤差只有幾年。
兩家公司都意識到數碼影像業務自身的利潤並不會十分豐厚。馬特森說：“精明的生意人得出結論：因為投入1美元在膠片上面能產生70美分的利潤，而投入到數碼影像上則最多產生5美分，所以最好不要急著過渡。”兩家公司都不得不適應變化，不過柯達的動作更為緩慢。
正如曾為柯達公司提供建議的哈佛商學院的羅莎貝斯•莫斯•坎特所說，柯達公司一心追求完美的產品，而完美產品的創制、商用及修整一系列思路具有很高的技術含量，這些柯達公司卻並不關心。公司所在城鎮只有柯達一家公司，這也其不利。坎特表示，該公司的老闆們很少聽從外界的建議。在決定擴大經營範圍之後，柯達 甚至用了幾年的時間才完成了第一次收購。坎特說，該公司獲得了可觀的風險投資，但是從未投入足夠多的錢以取得突破性進展。
柯達的運氣也不好。在研究用在膠片中的化學製劑時，柯達獲得了數千種化學製品，並期望這些可以轉而用於製造藥物。但其制藥部門經營不善，90年代就被出售了。【跨足製藥業但此行業風險甚高】
富士的業務轉換更為成功。膠片有點像皮膚，兩者都含有膠質。就像相片由於氧化而褪色，化妝品公司使民眾相信，抗氧化劑可以使皮膚受到保護。在富士的20萬 種化學合成物的名錄中，4000種與抗氧化劑有關。該公司從而建立起名叫艾詩緹（ASTALIFT）的化妝品產品線。該品牌目前在亞洲地區有售，並將於今 年拓展到歐洲市場。 【跨足化妝品業此行業需要行銷】
富士膠片還為其在膠片上的專業技能找到了新的出路，比如說，為LCD平板螢幕製造光學膜。2000年以來，富士已經在這個領域投入超過40億美元，並已經取得回報。在一種可以擴大LCD螢幕的可視角度的光學膜上，富士的市場佔有率達到100%。【跨足薄膜光學領域】
在1993到1999年領導柯達公司的喬治費舍爾認為，柯達的專業領域在成像而不是化學製品上。明智的老闆會利用這個主意做出成類似FACEBOOK的網站，費舍爾卻掙扎著用這個想法來套該公司的“剃鬚刀模型”：柯達出售便宜的相機並以昂貴的膠片盈利（就像吉列公司以刀片盈利，而不是剃鬚刀）。這個模型顯然不適用於數碼相機，雖然柯達最後還是利用數碼相機取得了大量收入，但是幾年之後就被有攝像頭的手機取代。 柯達也未能正確認知新興市場。該公司曾希望中國崛起的中產階級將買很多膠片。一段很短的時間內，他們確實買了很多，但是這些中產階級很快發現，數碼相機更酷。許多人從沒有相機直接過渡到數碼相機。
柯達的領導層也是反復無常，經營策略隨新任的首席執行官而變動。最新的一次發生在2005年，彭安東接掌帥印後，專注於將該公司轉換為數碼沖印領域的巨頭。他還試圖利用公司海量的知識產權賺錢，於是有了這次和蘋果的官司。
在富士膠片中，技術的更迭也引發了內部權力鬥爭，起初堅持膠片業務、無視危機迫近的一些人占了上風。但最後的贏家是古森重隆。2000年以來，古森在40個子公司上花了90億美元。他大幅縮減開支、裁退員工。在18個月時間裏，由於貶值的影響，以及裁退、縮編多餘的經銷商、產品 開發實驗室、管理者和研究人員，古森的重建耗費超過了2500億日元（33億美元）。古森說道：「那是一段痛苦的經歷，但是按之前的情形發展下去，沒人能倖存。所以我們不得不重建經營模式。只有適應環境的變化才能生存，如果不變的話就不會有未來。」
儘管由於大額支出而弱化，這種事先規避的行為並不是日本企業的典型案例。日本管理諮詢之父大前研一表示，很少有日本企業家會迅速行動，大額裁剪和繼續瘋狂支出。 對古森來說，這樣做意味著與親手提拔他的前任背道而馳，這在日本是很大的禁忌。不過，大前研一評估到，日本企業有長期經營的文化，這意味著股東對於企業的 短期表現很少向管理層施壓，並且能容忍企業持有巨額現金，所以富士膠片才能按著古森的想法行事。美國的股東可能沒有那麼耐心。結果令人驚訝，柯達表現得像 一個墨守成規、拒絕變化的日本公司，而富士膠片則像一個靈活機動的美國公司。
古森說，柯達對它的市場策略和品牌效應太自信了，以至於想用簡單的方法度過危機。上個十年，柯達試圖購買現成的公司而不是自己花時間和金錢研發技術。它也未能充分轉型，古森表示：「柯達想要成為一個數碼影像公司，但那是個小生意，供不起那麼大的企業。」
富士成為一個以影像、資訊、檔處理三大業務為核心的多元化公司，在醫療影像/生命科學、檔處理、印刷、高性能材料(平板液晶顯示材料、半導體電子材料、民用及工業用油墨)和光學元器件等領域均處於主導地位，而傳統膠片業務只占總業務的6％。
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