Polaroid and Plan B... 'A Mind Willing to Adapt'
"Some people think that, as the photography industry goes digital, photography too will disappear the way other things have. I don't think so. Analog photography will survive. In fact, many users are still satisfied with analog photography. Going further, as the digital imaging business grows, the market will change in much bigger and much faster ways." (p. 14)
Last spring, at a couples' gathering, I saw a Polaroid camera for the first time in a very long while. The host, saying "feel the sensibility of analog," took a photo and handed over the freshly printed image. Old memories of shooting with a Polaroid came back and I smiled without thinking. The print was small, but something soft about it, the feel of analog, came through.
Polaroid. Once, like today's iPad or Galaxy Note, it was something many people wanted to own. But now it has become an object of "memory."
In the 1990s, Polaroid was pulled into a whirlwind by the arrival of digital photography. At first, digital cameras were so expensive that they weren't all that threatening. But the price of digital cameras dropped sharply, and Polaroid hit a crisis.
To break out of the crisis, in 1995 Polaroid brought in a new CEO. The quote above — "many users are still satisfied with analog photography" — is his.
To break out of the crisis, in 1995 Polaroid brought in a new CEO. The quote above — "many users are still satisfied with analog photography" — is his.
Over three years the new CEO laid off more than 3,000 employees and rolled out one new product after another. But Polaroid made a decisive wrong move. It stuck only to its "existing business model" (Plan A). Even when Plan A started showing problems, instead of shifting to Plan B and adapting to the world, it held onto the old model. During that period other companies were developing new digital cameras, and in the end Polaroid went bankrupt.
The world always changes. That's just the nature of things. Even a carefully crafted first plan (Plan A) can become an outdated model once the world shifts. When that happens, you have to switch direction and walk down Plan B, which has evolved from Plan A. That is 'the mind willing to adapt.'
This is the lesson taught to us by companies that once stood at the center of the world and then faded into "memory."
▶ Ye Byung-il's Economy Note - Twitter: @yehbyungil / Facebook: www.facebook.com/yehbyungil
