Five Big Brands Which Failed To Keep Up With Innovation

Innovation is the cornerstone of any successful corporation or business.  Many corporate empires were built on the back of constant innovation and a few examples include Google, Apple and Amazon.  However, the opposite also holds true, that is, failure to keep up with changing demands and failing to innovate can shut down empires completely altogether.  Let us look at five brands which used to be household names but failed to keep up with innovation, leading to their eventual downfall.

Five big brands which failed to keep up with innovation

Kodak

Kodak was the pioneer in producing photo films for film cameras.  Many families till the early 1990s owned at least one film camera.  Kodak came up with the tagline ‘Kodak moment’ and it became such a huge hit with their audience that any good moment was called a ‘Kodak moment.’  However, Kodak, as a brand, failed to make the transition to digital photography as the management felt their key business focus should be on photographic films.  Canon entered the field of digital photography and completely transformed how photos could be captured and viewed by eliminating the need to develop a film. After multiple failed attempts to revive its business, Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

Nokia

Nokia is a Finnish brand which is well known for the sturdy mobile handsets they manufactured  during the 1990s. When the telecommunication revolution began, landlines were becoming outdated and they were being replaced by mobile handsets.  Nokia focussed on their hardware and produced several great mobile phones. Nokia was the first company to release a phone with a camera. So good was their hardware, their phones were termed as nearly indestructible.  When Apple introduced its first iPhone and then Google presented its Android software, Nokia was reluctant to embrace the Android OS, which cost them their place at the top. While Nokia’s competitors like Samsung, Sony and LG were already integrating Android OS into their devices, Nokia failed to seize the opportunity and expand its business.   Nokia’s mobile and devices division was finally acquired by Microsoft in the year 2013.

BlackBerry Motion

BlackBerry broke into the market by positioning itself as a device which offered the best encryption on the market.  This feature made it able to capture the interest of the corporate individuals and companies. Their BlackBerry Messenger, popularly known as BBM, had a unique identity as well.  BlackBerry was able to keep up with Apple when the Company released its iPhone, mainly due to its existing delivery network and infrastructure. Apple’s sales finally exceeded that of BlackBerry and the remaining market share was slowly being grabbed by Samsung, LG and other devices which came with an Android platform.  BlackBerry also tried to develop their own OS called the Blackberry 10 which was to replace the older Blackberry OS. Although BlackBerry then focused its business on adapting Android OS into their devices, the damage was already done as BlackBerry did not make the necessary changes when Samsung and the rest entered the market.

Yahoo!

Yahoo! started out as a search engine and was a pioneer  during the early internet era. Yahoo! also concentrated on the content and advertisements on their platform.  By undervaluing the importance of the search engine and focusing more on their content, they lost track of improving the user experience.  Yahoo! also missed out on a couple of deals which would have catapulted them to new heights, like when they had a deal to buy out Google and Facebook.  Yahoo!’s internet business was finally purchased by Verizon Technologies in 2016.

Blockbuster

Blockbuster, which is also called Blockbuster Entertainment, was an American company well known for operating stores which had top end electronics and games, apart from their video rental service.  They were particularly popular during the advent of VCRs, CDs and DVDs. The management was reluctant to begin an online segment of their business as they believed according to their data, customers would prefer to come to their stores to make purchases.  At this time, a new startup, named Netflix, entered the market, by providing a mail order service to rent videos and DVDs in the form of subscriptions. Netflix approached Blockbuster for a partnership where, if Blockbuster was willing to advertise Netflix in their stores, Netflix would run Blockbuster online.  This proposal was rejected by Blockbuster, leading Netflix to capture their market after they began their streaming services.

In conclusion, large corporations can shut down if they do not innovate.  In this day, where technology is evolving at a very rapid rate and where data  reigns as the king, companies need to be on their toes and constantly have an ear to the ground to listen to what the consumer needs and how they can improve the quality of life.  Having powerful leaders who are able to take risks when necessary can steer companies to success.