Kodak, the Roman Empire, Italian unity and Healthcare

It’s an odd title, I know, but please bear with me; there’s a reason for that.

Eastman Kodak Company (commonly known as Kodak) was founded in 1892 in in Rochester, New York. It is a company that I find very interesting because in the late 1800 Kodak innovated profoundly the photographic business by selling inexpensive cameras and making large margins on consumables[1]. Kodak strategy was so successful that in the late 1976 it was leading the US market with over 90% market share in film sales and 85% in camera sales. Astonishing, isn’t it?

So what happened? Why all people I know look at Kodak today as a modern antique?

I believe that the answer is in a study made in 2005 by the Harvard Business School, according to which Kodak failed because its “seemingly unassailable competitive positions fostered Kodak’s unimaginative executive culture”[2]

Is that correct? Is it all about imagination? I believe so, well maybe not just imagination but also being able to challenge the status quo to face future challenges. I believe that empires, companies and cultures, at a certain point of their lifecycle start to suffer of what I call “The Roman Empire Syndrome”.

You might say: “Hold on a second. What is the link between a global company selling camera films and the Roman Empire?”

We all know the history of the Roman Empire, its success and continuous growth over several hundreds of years. In the third century Rome faced a number of crises, but the Empire was too vast and ungovernable, therefore unable to react quickly to new challenges. That was the beginning of the end, started in 293 AD, when the emperor Diocletian decided to split the empire first in two parts and then in four transforming it into a tetrarchy.

So what I believe is that intrinsically big organizations contain the seed of their own end; for the simple reason that when they become very large they also become too innerly focused and unable to adapt quickly to a changing environment[3].

Coming back to today, we are facing the biggest economic challenge of the European Union. The current situation is generating additional taxes and austerity measures, including the healthcare sector which has more and more restricted budgets. On the other hand, the European population is growing older and older. If we only consider the five biggest European countries (Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain) 18% or more of the population is above 65, with Italy and Germany being more than 20%[4].

So we could say that the European healthcare system (including National Health, Industry, Hospitals, etc…) is facing a major challenge: how can I treat an increasing patient population, demanding always better quality of care, with flat or shrinking budgets?

This challenge is addressed to all actors: governments, institutions, hospitals and also the Industry. I think that NayaMed is nothing else than one of the first answers (and probably not the only one) to the real needs of Healthcare today. I think that initiatives like NayaMed will sparkle and inspire the medical device industry in how we can achieve more with less. Because, similarly to the Roman Empire or Kodak, I don’t see today the major medical device companies taking a step-change and rethinking their business model, adapting to the changing environment[5].

Massimo D’Azeglio, an Italian politician and patriot, said during the Italian Unification: “We have made Italy, now we must make the Italians”[6]. Today, after having spent a lot of efforts in building NayaMed, it is exactly the same challenge that we are facing. We have generated a new sparkle in the healthcare market, now we have to ignite the change in our customers, partners and even competitors.

So, to make a long story short, yesterday NayaMed did the first ICD implant in the hospital S.Orsola in Bologna… and today I’m feeling like Johnny Utah in Point Break when, just before parachuting down from a plane for the first time, one of the other surfers tells him “You’re about to jump out a perfectly good airplane Jonny, how do you feel about that?”[7].

My answer would be: good.

Andrea Pedrazzini

Marketing Manager NayaMed