Business Studies Homework

Complete product research on any of the following products:

Model-T Ford Motorcar

Apple iPod

IBM Personal Computer

Your page must include the following at a minimum:

· The product name

· Some brief background information (eg. key dates and people)

· What makes the product an invention or an innovation

· An analysis of the product in terms of how it gave the business a competitive advantage or added value

· A brief outline of how the product was marketed

· An outline of at least two other similar products that were more or less successful for the same or other companies.

See the other side of this page for an example on how to complete the task.

Product Profile – Polaroid Camera

Polaroid cameras were first commercially produced in 1947 – bringing an innovative new product to the market that allowed people to view their images soon after taking them instead of weeks later. Edwin H Land conceived of the camera after his 3 year old daughter asked him why she couldn't see the photograph he had just taken of her immediately. Land’s company began with a partnership with George Wheelwright, forming Land-Wheelwright Laboratories. From 1932 the company produced mainly lenses for other cameras and optical lenses for glasses.

Polaroid cameras are an innovation that combines the photographic capabilities of a regular camera and development process that normally takes place in a lab. Neither of these are new inventions, however the combination of the two makes this product an innovation.

The Polaroid Camera was marketed through the use of prominent and emerging photographic artists such as Ansel Adams who became famous for his photographs of American landscapes.

The competitive advantage gained from introducing a brand new and highly innovative product earned the Land-Wheelwright Laboratories $5,000,000 in 1949. No other product like it existed on the market and even today the patents and copyrights on the product prevent other companies from introducing similar products.

Competitors

Kodak introduced a similar product in the 1950’s called the Kodamatic that used a slightly different film and development process. This was unsuccessful for the Kodak-Eastman Company as Polaroid bought a patent-infringement lawsuit against them and forced a halt in production of the camera and its film. This resulted in losses for Kodak as they also had to offer settlements to those who had bought a Kodamatic but could no longer get film for them.

In the 1980’s and 90’s Fujifilm also introduced their Fotorama range of cameras that used a similar process to the Kodak cameras and were successfully sold in most countries with the exception of the United States. Polaroid still held the patents in the US and until they announced that they would no longer be producing film from 2008, Polaroid remained the dominant product in instant cameras.