Avoiding your Kodak moment: despite eastman Kodak's historic dominance in all things photographic, it recently descended into chapter 11 reorganization. This sad chapter in the story of an epic American brand offers some useful lessons to those of us in long-established, highly regarded, but technologically changing industries.

• Author: Motley, Biff L.
• Position: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

It should be noted that this iconic company actually failed many years ago when it decided to cede the growing market for digital photography to Canon, Nikon and Sony--despite having invented this new technology. Unlike IBM which, in light of the emergence of PCs, courageously transformed its entire business model from an increasingly low-margin computer manufacturer to a high-margin technology-focused consulting company, Kodak clung to its dominance in film production. Kodak stuck its head in the sand and hoped this digital trend would go away.

Of course, it didn't go away. And now Kodak is left with little but a portfolio of patents it is trying lo sell. While this is a sad ending to a once sterling brand, it may offer some useful insights to bank marketers charged with plotting their company's way forward in an increasingly instantaneous digital world.

The emergence of digital information and its immediacy benefits are transforming the convenience-hungry expectations of our clients. At the same lime, however, retiring Baby Boomers and time-challenged small-business owners are ever-more in need of in-depth, highly customized and valued, one-to-one personal advisory services.

The key opportunity here lies in understanding the differences in satisfying these two customer expectations and building a plan to balance them. It might be helpful to sort them into two broad groups of initiatives: "Technology Dependent" and "People Dependent."

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