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O P I N I O N
The innovation continuum
Embrace change, take chances, and continually innovate to make sure your firm stays ahead on the innovation continuum.
I n 1975, Kodak, the world’s largest manufacturer of photographic film, shelved a digital camera invention because it feared it would hurt the company’s dominant market for camera film. By the mid-1990s, digital photography started to overtake the film market. That left Kodak, after having a 100-year near monopoly in the camera film market, filing for bankruptcy by 2012, all because it failed to embrace innovative ideas its own employees created.
Jeff Bischoff
yet, the fact that a large company like Google was willing to invest heavily in that technology says something important about Google: It will take chances and continually innovate. It embraces change. It has created an environment where “We have to accept that we won’t all be on the cutting edge, but we also have to recognize that we need that cutting edge if we plan to stay ahead of the competition.”
Kodak eventually made attempts to enter the digital market, but it was too little too late. As a result, during bankruptcy re-organization, Kodak had to sell hundreds of early patents for digital imaging technology to companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe Systems. On the other end of the spectrum, Google – which started out as an internet search engine firm – started a self-driving car project in 2009. In 2016, it spun off that project into a new company, Waymo. In 2017, Waymo started testing vehicles on roads. Soon, small scale production of these vehicles will start in a factory near Detroit. While self-driving cars have not become the norm
See JEFF BISCHOFF, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER September 30, 2019, ISSUE 1314
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