Polaroid was a company that came up with a radical innovation, with its instant photography technology and grew into a multibillion dollar enterprise. At the end though, Polaroid failed. They didn't evolve with the times to come up with incremental innovations to continuously grow. By the time they were willing to jump on the bandwagon, it was rather too late for them. Their failure described as an overestimation of the value of their core business was well fitting I believe. Although they captured the market place with their instant photography technology, they should not have the mentality that they will always be the biggest and strongest player in the marketplace due to their initial standings. In the business world, it is very much like that in life in general, it is survival of the fittest. Fittest in terms, of keeping up with the demand/shifts/evolution of the consumers, who are ultimately the deciding factors of whether or not a company will thrive or fail.
The Polaroid case was a good example fitting for this chapter. Innovation is an important way for a company to grow. Once an innovation is a “hit,” the R & D shouldn’t stop there. It should be a continuous cycle. The initial innovation of Polaroid was why we know of their brand. But poorly managing innovations and not coming up with incremental innovations to continuously capture and retain audiences was definitely a down fall for them. We were not a part of the company to say, they were or were not open to innovative ideas. They could have been… perhaps they felt like most ideas were “weeds.” They should have built more on top of their