Executive Summary
Polaroid Company was founded in the year 1943 by Edwin Land. The company was mainly involved with instant photography, a kind of its own which has not been experienced in the period before. Since its foundation, the company had experienced tremendous growth with new innovations that made photography even easier.
Such innovations include the introduction of SX-70 that brought the company to the limelight winning accolades from respectable papers, such as, the Times and the FORTUNE. The company’s main success was attributed to its founder whom as indicated by Elkan Blout, a Harvard professor, had the ability to differentiate a good idea and a good product but time came when he started losing this and when he lost, it was very difficult for him and this led to difficulties in the company.
He stepped down as the CEO in 1980 and died 11 years later and since his death Polaroid seems to have entered into a den of problems. Hundreds of the company employees have become jobless while thousands of others fear for their pensions with the Polaroid appearing to have been declared obsolete.
The company problems not only originated from its over reliance on film technology (which was being dropped for the cheaper and advanced digital technology) but also the disorganization and conflict within the company on how to introduce and market their new digital imagery technology (which they were trying to introduce).
With the company having relied heavily on film sales for their profits, reduced sales meant that growth stagnated and the company made losses, which eventually led to its filing for bankruptcy.
Introduction
The Polaroid Company was founded by Edwin Land in 1943. It was the first company to introduce instant photography (Whitford, 2001).
The story goes that while on a vacation with his daughter, Jennifer; the daughter wondered why after her father took the photos why they could not have them instantly. This made Land, her father, wonder the same and the ideas to make her daughter wild imagination come to work materialized that same afternoon.
Land solved all the technical problems which he could, except those which he carried from 1943 until 1972. By 1948, Land had expanded his production and he had the Model95, which was selling at$89.95 (Whitford, 2001).
Land and his brilliant researchers continued with successful growth making more advanced models as years followed. His best of the inventions was the introduction of the SX-70 camera which was a marvel innovation that won crowns from notable magazines such as the Time, Life and FORTUNE. SX-70 was a whole bundle of inventions equipped even with a new film that dispensed with the need of timers and peel away negatives, which produced a color print right before your eyes (Whitford, 2001).
One of the Land’s strength as noted by Elkan Blout, a Harvard university professor, was his ability to differentiate a good idea and a good product. But at one of his times, Land started losing this ability to differentiate as it was accounted with the introduction of Polavision, a moving version of instant photography clobbered with a video.
Land wanted to win all but when he didn’t it became very difficult for him, he stepped down as the Polaroid CEO in 1980 and died 11 years later in 1991. Since his death, problems for Polaroid seemed to increase, with hundreds of its employees out of work while thousands fear for their pensions and the increased fears that the Polaroid technology appears now obsolete.
The company filed for bankruptcy in the year 2001, a fact many have attributed to its heavy reliance on obsolete technology and the management failure to find ways of introducing new innovations to compete with the emerging technologies in the world of image and photography that was being introduced by rival companies.
It is worth noting that with technology being restless and ever advancing, any company which does not invest in making innovations becomes obsolete as can be seen with the Polaroid filing of bankruptcy (Whitford, 2001). The bankruptcy of Polaroid Company was caused by disruptive technologies.
With rival companies shifting from analog to digital photography and the reluctance by Polaroid to shift, the chances of its survival were very minimal. While during the earlier days, the beauty of Polaroid had been in its ability of producing photos which were viewed in the spot, digital imaging provided the same services but at a cheaper price and thus Polaroid no longer had its competitive advantage it had earlier..
The question that remains is did Polaroid ever see the threat of digital technology and how did they react? The truth is that the company made improvements in technology experiencing remarkable growth which later became a household name. As a mater of fact, the company believed in innovation but when photography turned digital, the company was reluctant to shift and problems began for Polaroid, (Sandstrom, 2009).
The company prepared to shift to digital imaging by even introducing the 1.9 mega pixel in 1989, but the company failed in terms of marketing and business models. With Polaroid experiencing stagnating profits, it became too market oriented and conflicts started in the 1990s when the company engineers started fighting with the senior management over the business model to be used for marketing of the digital cameras.
These internal problems affected the working of the company and even delayed the introduction of new technologies which the company was working in. such delays were experienced for example with the digital prototype which had been developed in the year 1992 but was not launched to the market until 1996, where by even on its launching other technologies had been introduced by rival companies and thus the company did not earn enough as it could have earned if the prototype was introduced earlier and the company marketing department did not also know how to market the product.
The company over reliance on film sales was a major factor that led to the company failure. This was due to the fact that as people migrated to digital cameras, the sales of films which was Polaroid’s main source of income was rendered obsolete leading to the company stagnating growth, losses, and the filing for bankruptcy.
Conclusion
We can conclude that the bankruptcy of Polaroid did not result solely from its reliance on obsolete camera technologies since there is evidence indicating that the company shifted from analogue to digital cameras but the confusion with in the sales department and the declining sales of films were some of the major causes and also the conflict between the company engineers and the senior management and the over reliance on film sales while people were migrating to the storage of photos in discs led to the company accruing many losses and thus resulting to the filing for bankruptcy.
Reference List
Sandstrom, C. (2009). The Rise of Digital Imaging and the fall of the Old Camera Industry. Web.
Whitford, D. (2001). Polaroid, R. I. P. Web.