Week2 Question 2

Week 2 Question 2

Think of an organization that attempted to change,but failed.

Assess what went wrong and what could have been done differently to avoid the failure

Comment in 100 words to each post

#1 Kodak

Kodak comes to mind as an example of change but failed. Antonio Perez, Kodak’s chief executive at the time, invested in millions of dollars to transform Kodak into an inject printer business because of their inkjet technology and sources suggesting the new business venture had a great future. Despite concerns from shareholders and investors, Perez was so confident about this that he was even quoted to say, “I’m going to rub this in Hewlett-Packard’s face” (Martin, 2011). In January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (Dickinson, 2017).

From my perspective, Kodak failed because they did not pay attention to the external environment around their business and poor leadership. For instance, when Fuji started to compete, Kodak remained to stagnate and slow to react because of they didn’t think the US would prefer other brands. Although Kodak tries to acquire other tech companies to expand their brand, their poor M&A management and leadership blocked their progress (Martin, 2011). In the end, I think if Kodak paid attention early on about what the other competition was doing and hire the right leaders, then perhaps they would be successful today.

Reference:

Martin, A. (2011, Oct 21). Negative exposure. New York Times Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.contentproxy.phoenix.e…

Dickinson, M. (2017). Kodak’s decades of decline. Rochester Business Journal, 33(23), 2-1,14. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.contentproxy.phoenix.e…

#2 Border Bookstore

Border’s Bookstore launched in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971. Borders was a successful bookstore, where they had a location in every mall, and in every major city offering books from all genres for their audience. 40 plus years later everyone has a tablet that they can purchase books anytime and anywhere. Borders had to now compete with Barnes and Nobles with their Nook, Amazon with their Kindle, and Apple with their iPad. They didn’t release any tablets or new technology’s to strengthen their relationship with their modern customers, but they focused on their music sales and etc. They should have invested more in technology and a better user friendlyinterface with their online business as well.

I remember always going to the mall and going into Borders to get the new harry potter book, and to hangout with some of my classmates reading the newest fiction and drama books that were available. Books are becoming irrelevant into this modern life, and even Barnes and Nobles is struggling to stay relevant today, but they are successful because of their adaption to technology.

-Christopher Jones

#3 By Destiny

Think of an organization that attempted to change, but failed.

Compaq was a top PC brand in the 80s and 90s and spent a ton of money to acquire DEC in 1998, mainly to compete with Intel. This move seemed like a win at first, but a lot of what DEC had to offer didn’t fit within the Compaq model or plan. So matching up DEC’s offerings with Compaq’s true needs did not line up well. Compaq also had some scandalous issues that forced various executives out in 1999. Compaq’s sales dropped while other big players’ sales increased. The competitors had a sell-direct model that Compaq did not have. When Compaq attempted to direct-sale, the efforts “were lackluster at best.” Compaq continued to lose sales and ultimately was acquired by HP. Now the HP’s acquisition is believed to be a disastrous one!

Compaq started out with a massive, innovative presence, but was more focused on being big and accelerating growth, than focusing on the true market need. If the focus had remained on their core business, I bet they would still be around today.

Reference: https://dfarq.homeip.net/why-did-compaq-fail/

#4 by Angela

An organization I can think of that attempted to change was a pizza place in my home town. The change that occurred was trying to expand into a pasta place as well as pizza. The owner decided to do this by making another establishment right next door. The pasta place only remained open for about a year because it was overpriced and right next door to his other business that had better deals. Being in a small town and having the prices as high as they are it seemed that this change the owner was making was going to fail from the start. Instead the owner should have introduced the pasta in his current restaurant and made the menu bigger with better deals and not such high prices. Trying to expand can be good and bad depending on how a person is expanding a place. This change in the end did not benefit the organization and ended up closing down.