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Kodak to realign units
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October 23, 2000: 4:44 p.m. ET
Company to focus on customer service, new products, digital technology
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Eastman Kodak Co. on Monday unveiled a realignment plan that focuses on new products and customer service, a move the 108-year-old photography icon hopes will help ease its troubled transition into the digital age.
Rochester-based Kodak, a maker of digital and traditional cameras, film, and other consumer and professional photographic products, said the new corporate structure is designed to drive growth through aggressive investments in digital technologies, faster introductions of new products and improved customer service.
Kodak (EK: Research, Estimates) said it would simplify its organization by consolidating seven business units into two groups: Consumer Business and Commercial Business.
The new organization will reduce the number of executives reporting directly to the chief executive officer to nine from 15.
 In addition, it plans to ramp up its focus on New Business activities, a move aimed at generating sales from Kodak's research labs and external venture capital investments. The first new business will be called Kodak Display business unit, which will leverage the company's patented flat-panel display technology known as Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLED).
Kodak has been struggling to redefine itself in a digital age through major investments in digital and Internet services in a competitive market. It has been locked in a fight for market share with Japan's Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd.
In addition, the company must meet the challenge of reinventing itself amid a slowing economy.
"As the picture industry embraces the digital age, Kodak's new structure will help the company grab a bigger share of a market that is far larger than traditional photography," said Chief Executive Daniel Carp. "Kodak will streamline its operations, speed its decisionmaking and deliver customers more products and better service by more closely linking our business units." 
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Kodak
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