Wk 5 Discussion – Examining How Case Management Failed
This week focuses on the creation of an implementation plan and associated change management.
Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
- Think of an example where change was attempted but failed.
- Using the concepts presented in this week’s readings, discuss what contributed to the failure and what might have been done to prevent it.
Kodak
The prime example for companies that failed due to poor strategy. This is the story of how Kodak invented the digital camera, only to then decide not to launch one until over 15 years later!
In 1975, Steve Sasson created the world’s first digital camera at the Kodak HQ in New York. It was a 0.1 Megapixel beast that was around the size of a toaster.
It was also utterly revolutionary and would change the face of photography for ever. The team at Kodak were smart – and they knew just how big of a deal this was. So they invested millions of dollars into getting digital cameras into production.
A few years later, they were all set to launch the world’s first commercially available digital camera – until members of the senior management team put a stop to the whole endeavor.
Why? Because they were worried about hurting the performance of their film division – which relied on selling single-use rolls of films to customers with non-digital camera devices. Even when they were told that they had at most, 10 years until digital would completely displace film – they continued to resist in order to ensure that they met their own short term financial KPIs.
What can we learn from Kodak?
Plenty of postmortems has been performed on Kodak’s demise and how it implemented one of the world’s worst business strategies.
What most of them agree on, is that key executives at the time were working far more towards short-term profit goals than towards long-term viability of the business.
Even though film sales were declining – the executives did a great job of managing the expectations of their shareholders down, so that bonuses were still being regularly paid out, even as sales continued to decline.
One of the models we often suggest to our clients to avoid this scenario is to implement something like McKinsey’s Strategic Horizon model as part of your strategic plan. This model forces you to balance your goals between the 3 horizons of:
- 1: Revenue from business as usual (around 70% of your effort)
- 2: Focus on broadening your revenue streams (around 20 of your effort)
- 3: Focus on exploring entirely new revenue streams (around 10% of your effort)
Whilst this model might not have saved Kodak – it would at least have highlighted how little focus was being put on revenue streams beyond that of their traditional film business. Take a look at our guide to the best strategy frameworks for more information about McKinsey’s Strategic Horizons.