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The Digital Servitization Exchange Podcast
Connecting research and practice in the transformation from products to digital services.
The Digital Servitization Exchange Podast explores how manufacturers create and capture value through services and software. Designed for both researchers and practitioners, the podcast brings together academic insight and industry experience to unpack the concepts, challenges, and opportunities driving digital servitization.
Each episode delves into themes such as service innovations, subscription models, industrial IoT, digital platform ecosystems, and organizational transformation. Rather than focusing on individual voices, the podcast emphasizes relevant topics that matter across domains — offering evidence-based perspectives for academics and actionable ideas for business professionals.
By bridging theory and practice, The Digital Servitization Exchange Podcast provides a space where learning flows both ways: from research to real-world implementation, and from practice back to research.
Ideal for: academics, doctoral researchers, industrial leaders, digital transformation managers, service strategists, and anyone shaping the future of digitally enabled services.
The Digital Servitization Exchange Podcast
#24 Digital Cameras, Analog Thinking: Kodak’s Service Ecosystem Collapse
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Description
Eastman Kodak is often remembered as the company that “missed digital photography.” But that story is too simple.
In this episode, we unpack Kodak’s collapse through the lens of service ecosystem strategy and servitization. Despite inventing the first digital camera and leading U.S. digital camera sales in the 2000s, Kodak failed to realign its business model with how value was actually shifting in the digital age. Rather than embracing platforms, social sharing, and services, Kodak doubled down on a print-centric ecosystem logic, using digital tools to protect an analog revenue model.
We explore how Kodak’s service ecosystem—once its greatest strength—became a strategic trap, why its early move into online photo services (Ofoto) fell short. The episode offers a cautionary lesson for incumbents: digital transformation fails when technology changes but the service ecosystem logic does not.
Key words
Kodak, Digital Transformation, Business Ecosystems, Servitization, Platform Strategy, Innovation Failure, Disruptive Technology, Ofoto, Strategy & Leadership