One of my brother’s B-school assignments was to come up with a product pitch to a semi-local company (he went to Cornell). His group was assigned Kodak, and the group basically suggested they move into digital photography, and backed it up with market research data and technology innovation data.
Kodak literally laughed at them. I think it was around 1995 or 1996.
I’ll have to share this story with him.
I was there then. In one meeting they explained they were of course considering the switch to digital, but retailers threatened to stop carrying film if Kodak did to any significant degree (good for business, you see) so, considering the retailers their customers, they gave the customers what they wanted. ...forgetting, of course, who actually took the pictures, and why they used film - or not, and soon “not” in huge percentages.
“One of my brother’s B-school assignments was to come up with a product pitch to a semi-local company (he went to Cornell). His group was assigned Kodak, and the group basically suggested they move into digital photography, and backed it up with market research data and technology innovation data.
Kodak literally laughed at them. I think it was around 1995 or 1996.
I’ll have to share this story with him.”
Just an FYI: Kodak INVENTED digital photography. It was a Kodak engineer who invented, designed and built the first digital camera in 1975.