Kodak's Economic Recovery After the World Trade Center Attacks

Kodak finally witnessed some improvements in 2003, worldwide sales had gone up again with $13.3 billion, and once again, over half of it coming from outside the United States. This year 2003 was about focusing on change. And by change, they meant by reducing its annual dividend by over 70%, thus allowing them to free up billions in order to support a striving plan that would enable them to depart from traditional photography and into digital imaging. Change also brought a major development in their products as well, for instance the Kodak EasyShare LS633 became the world's first organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display. This breakthrough product instantly became award-winning technology. This digital camera in particular can display bright, sharp images for basic on-camera performance.

By late 2004, Kodak had collaborated with IBM. This was going to enable them to focus on the development and manufacture of image sensors to enforce fierce market consumer products such as the digital still camera and of course, camera phones. Coincidentally, Kodak was already a powerhouse in charged couple device (Also known as, CCD) image sensors which had already served the top-notch performance necessities of professional imaging markets. The collaboration of both these companies enabled Kodak to arrange IBM's powerful attributes with image science and sensor analysis into applications that are used by many consumers, thus opening doors for more market opportunities.

2005 was not exactly a progressing year for Eastman Kodak. This meant that they faced a rapid collapse in their consumer photography business. Kodak's decline opened doors for some emerging businesses in their industry. To make matters worse, Kodak's corporate credit ratings went from BBB- to BB+ and they were $2.4 billion in debt as of late March. There have been some upsides to this year in particular, for example, they managed to blend in with the damaged consumer photography and falling sales of X-rays. Although there were a few upsides throughout the whole year, the downsides obviously outweighed them. The reduction of prices required execution risks even if the sales volumes were to decline faster than what Kodak estimated. In conclusion, it is critical that Kodak must become organized in terms of management. Ratio numbers have been fluctuating endlessly and it is time for Kodak to maintain a disciplined image in order to become America's number one photographic film company once again. Financial data for Kodak was retrieved at www.morningstar.com.

Economic Information regarding the Kodak Company was collected in the 10th edition of the Strategic Management and Business Policy textbook.