05 Jan 2012 Kodak looking at chapter 11 – it’s not difficult to see who’s next
If you had a crystal ball for your business, would you use it? Of course you would. And what if it said that within the next decade, you’d be filing for chapter 11 protection and putting your patents – the core assets of your business – up for sale in an attempt to salvage something?
You don’t need a crystal ball to see that the expected growth in electronic invoicing is going to send a few businesses – big names, healthy and substantial businesses – down exactly this route. Businesses who grew to support their customers in a paper world – a world that is disappearing rapidly – simply won’t survive the decade unless they make major adaptations to the way they work.
They know who they are. Companies like Pitney Bowes, Iron Mountain and Xerox, to their credit, have already identified the need to adapt their business models. But so did Kodak. Kodak adapted their business model when they could see digital photography emerging. They just didn’t do enough and they couldn’t let go of their baggage. Now, according to this report, their baggage – their collection of patents – is up for sale in a last ditch attempt to survive.
We’ve written about it before here but now that the Kodak story is entering what may be its last chapter, perhaps it’s time for for some businesses to look again at whether they are doing enough.
Pitney Bowes, Iron Mountain, Xerox and the rest, ask yourselves the question, hand on heart, are you still in denial about e-invoicing?
