柯达王朝覆灭的迷思

    商业战略其实也是一种潮流，但人们似乎很少留意到这一点。汽车鳍状稳定板曾风行一时，如今商界人士的着装活脱脱就是现实版的《广告狂人》（Mad Men），手机行业也在效仿乔尼•艾夫的iPhone手机设计理念，纷纷采用大触摸屏和图标。同样的道理，涉及企业应该如何创造价值，我们也有一些约定俗成的观点。而且，为了便于使用，这些观点甚至拥有属于自己专门的名称，比如：关注点、成本领先、差异化、核心竞争力、供应链整合等等。

    最近几天，处于死亡边缘的柯达公司（Kodak）让我产生了上面这样的想法。有关柯达的大多数描述都是标准版的《四眼天鸡》（Chicken Little）：天要蹋了；美国梦破灭了；又一家优秀公司遭遇滑铁卢。我们就要玩完了，而对此我们却束手无策。毕竟，曾经的柯达是美好时代的标志。当时的美国，创新和发明无处不在。柯达创始人乔治•伊士曼当初的目标是让摄影“像使用铅笔一样方便”。虽然现在这已经成为现实，甚至有所超越，但柯达公司却并未从这一新兴趋势中获益。

    因此，周一上午，当柯达公司的领导解释公司面临的问题、以及一家前途如此光明的公司为何功败垂成时，我们的心情非常复杂，幸灾乐祸中也夹杂着一丝恐惧。外界的基本观点是，柯达错过了这个时代。由于它过分固守胶片摄影，因此，柯达从未真正（借用另一个商业战略流行术语）“跨越鸿沟”，无法抓住新兴数码摄影领域的发展潮流。

    如果说这个简单的分析过于肤浅，那么实际情况又是怎么样的呢？柯达公司的倒闭并非像那些令人唏嘘不已的经典破产案例那么简单。公司衰败的原因也不仅仅是由于公司高管近期的一系列错误决策或管理不善。其中的问题更加微妙，证明了即便是一家满怀良好的愿景、竭尽全力做到最好的公司也非常容易出现问题。它告诫我们，创新与某个具体的商品、设备，或者某一项技术无关。我们必须谨慎思考创新的真正意义，以及创新的极端重要性——事实上，它比人们想象的更加重要。

    其实，柯达非常清楚，数码技术终将会瓦解传统胶片产业。众所周知，柯达拥有关于数码摄影的主要专利，并且在1975年生产了世界上第一批数码相机。《经济学人》（The Economist）近期载文称，1979年，柯达高管之间流传过一份报告，其中详细描述了到2010年，摄影市场将如何从胶片时代永久地转变为数码时代。所以，数码技术带来的冲击完全在意料之中。但是柯达公司高层却遵循了当时流行的管理思潮，仍然从公司在化学、光学和胶片领域的绝对优势这个角度出发来看待整个行业的转变。他们试图沿用自己熟悉的本领来尝试新生事物，但实际上，他们应该更积极地探索新兴的陌生事物。

    柯达在胶片之外实现多元化经营的一次重要尝试发生在上世纪70年代末。当年，他们瞄准了静电复印，并将竞争对手锁定为同一地区的另一家知名企业——同样来自纽约罗切斯特的施乐公司（Xerox）。当时，我正担任施乐的顾问，对于柯达公司进入复印行业的举措，我们非常重视。事实上，我们的重视是正确的。要知道，凭借在有机化学和光学方面的优势，他们开发了大批优秀的高端产品。

    People never seem to notice, but strategies have fashions. Just as cars had fins for a while, or business folks try to dress like they just stepped off the set of Mad Men, or phones get big touch screens and icons to chase after Jony Ive's iPhone design choices, there are also conventions in how we think about what firms should do to create value. These ways of thinking even have names so we can refer to them in shorthand: focus, cost leadership, differentiation, core competence leverage, supply chain integration, and the like.

    This came to mind over the last few days in the midst of the Kodak (EK) death vigil. Most of the Kodak conversation has been standard issue Chicken Little: the sky is falling; the American dream is dead; another classic company has bitten the dust. We're all off to hell in a handcart and there's not a thing we can do about it. After all, Kodak was a symbol of better times, an era when American innovation and invention was seemingly ubiquitous. But while George Eastman's goal -- to make photography "as convenient as the pencil" has been realized and even exceeded -- Kodak was not the company that capitalized on this new ubiquity.

    And so, with a mixture of schadenfreude and fear, we hear the Monday morning quarterbacks explain what went wrong and explain how a company with so much promise managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. The basic buzz is that Kodak missed the moment. Addicted to film photography, they never really could (to borrow a phrase from another brief strategic fashion) "cross the chasm" and drive the growing new digital photography field.

    What if this convenient analysis is just too superficial? The demise of Kodak isn't merely the classic disruption story that everyone loves to tut tut over. Nor is the company's downfall merely a result of recent bad decisions or the mismanagement of senior executives. It is the more nuanced story of how easy it can be to get things wrong, even when trying with the best of intentions to do everything right. It's a cautionary tale of the need for deeper understanding of what innovation really means, and how it is infinitely more vital than most people think it is, even as it isn't about any single product or widget or technology.

    Kodak knew all about the impending disruption of digital technology. As many have noted, they own the primary patents on digital photography and built one of the world's first digital cameras in 1975. As The Economist reported recently, a report circulated among senior executives in 1979 detailed how the market would shift permanently from film to digital by 2010. This disruption was no surprise. But following the fashions of the moment back then, Kodak's leaders looked at the whole shift through the lens of their signature strengths in chemistry, optics, and films. They tried to do new things with familiar capabilities at the exact moment they needed to be hungrier to do truly new, unfamiliar things.

    One of Kodak's significant attempts to diversify away from the world of film came at the end of the 1970s. They targeted xerography, specifically aiming at the other hometown hero in Rochester, New York. I was consulting with Xerox (XRX) at the time, and we took Kodak's threat to enter the world of copying very seriously. We were right to; Kodak's strengths in organic chemistry and optics helped them to create some excellent, high-end products.