Case Study on Downsizing Strategy Background

Eastman Kodak, often simply referred to as Kodak, was a multinational company that produced camera$-$related products. It was a dominant player in the photographic film market for most of the $20$th century. However, the Company struggled with the rapid transition to digital photography in the late $1990$s and early $2000$s$.$ Despite inventing the first digital camera, Kodak failed to embrace this new technology fully and instead continued to focus on traditional film products. As the Company$$s profits and market share began to decline, Kodak initiated several rounds of downsizing to cut costs. From the mid$-1990$s onwards, Kodak started reducing its workforce drastically. In $1988,$ the Company had $145,300$ employees. By $2007,$ the number had shrunk to $24,400.$ In the short term, the downsizing helped Kodak stay afloat, but it wasn$$t enough to compensate for the Company$$s strategic missteps. Kodak$$s financial condition continued to worsen, and in $2012,$ the Company filed for bankruptcy. The Company emerged from bankruptcy in $2013$ as a much smaller entity focused on digital imaging and printing technologies but never regained its former prominence. By $2014$ Kodak appointed a new CEO Matt Daymond to turn around the failing company with a revised organizational strategy. Current technological trends have demonstrated that producing stand$-$alone cameras and printed photos was no longer lucrative. As a result, Kodak will adopt a cost leadership strategy while entering into the mobile phone and computer components industry. Its was determined that $7$ to $10\%$ of the workforce do not posses the competencies $($knowledge$,$ skills and abilities$)$ to support its strategic direction.

Questions:

$1.$ As the newly appointed, Director, Human Resources, using Lewin$$s three step process of unfreezing, changing and refreezing how will you implement and manage organizational change at Kodak with the new strategy?

$2.$ Additionally, what alternatives to downsizing can be recommended in this scenario? At least $2/3$ recommendations.

Arguments$/$findings are relevant to the topic and are presented. All the implications are presented. The link between theory and practice is articulated. Reference must be included.