“Without a robust and resilient innovation no company

can survive”

KODAK

A technology company that dominated the film market during the 20th century.

Failure reasons

 Lack of innovation.
 Unwillingness to innovate put the company at risk of failure.
 Failed to see digital photography as a disruptive technology.
 Developed the world’s first consumer digital camera but could not get it
approved to launch due to fear of effects on film market.

NOKIA

A company founded in Finland was first to create a cellular network in the

world.
Failure REASONs

 Other mobile companies started understanding how data not voice was the
future of communication.
 Nokia didn’t grasp the concept of software and kept focusing on hardware
because the management feared to alienate current users if they changed too
much.
 Didn’t want to lead the drastic change in user experience.
 Overestimated the strength of its brand and believed they could arrive late in
smart phone game and succeed.

XEROX
It was the first to invent the PC and their product was way ahead of its time.

Failure reasons

 Management believed that going digital would be too expensive.

 They never bothered to exploit the opportunities they had.
 It was convinced that its future was in copy machines.
 The digital communication products invented weren’t seen as something that
could replace black marks on white papers.
 Xerox failed to understand that you can’t keep perpetually making money in the
same technology.
BLOCKBUSTER

This video rental company was at its peak in 2004.

Failure reasons

 Failed to innovate into a market that allowed for delivery (much less streaming).
 It figured that their physical stores were enough to please their customers.
 They had been the leader of the movie rental market for years which made it
think that there is no need they change their strategy.
 Founder of Netflix proposed a partnership with CEO of blockbuster to advertise
their brand in the stores while Netflix would run blockbuster online which was
turned down.
YAHOO

It was one of the main players in the online advertising market.

Failure reasons

 It undervalued the importance of search.

 The company decided to focus more on becoming a media giant neglecting the
consumer trends and need to improve the user experience.
 Failed to make enough profit in order to scale.
 It refused the offers to buy Google in 2002 and Facebook in 2006 which could
have saved it.
SEGWAY

It was a Personal motorized scooter invented and brought to the market in 2001.

Failure REASONS

 It was designed to with the intension of being a revolutionary transportation

option but ended on the failed inventions list.
 It didn’t appeal to the masses.
 Price was bit high as being at $5000 it matched to the price of a newer
motorcycle.
 Raising of questions of whether it was safe for street handling or not.
 IBM

International business machines nick named BIG BLUE is an American

multinational technology company.
Failure reasons

 Failed to adjust to the personal computer revolution and thus began their
downfall.
 Adjusting its focus back on hardware instead of software solutions.
JCPENNEY

An American department store JCPENNEY has maintained as one of the largest

catalog retail business in the US.
Failure REASONS

 When market around them was changing JCPENNEY couldn’t find its new
niche and faced an identity crisis.
 Revenue started to dry up drastically when Ron Johnson took over as CEO in
2012.
 During this time at JCPENNEY the company lost about $985 million.
TIE RACK
This is a British tie retailer founded in 1981.

Failure reasons

 Failed to do its research about men’s shopping behavior.

 Even though tie rack offered quality ties. It wasn’t enough to wow it target.
 It failed to know the customer demand.
BLACKBERRY MOTION

Blackberry, a line of smart phones and tablets, was a smashing success in 1998.

Failure reasons

 They didn’t think about the experience of the users or customers.

 Entire mobile industry started focusing on bigger touch screen displays while
blackberry was more concerned about protecting what it already had.
 Failed to adapt to changes and was hence out of smart phones manufacturing
business.
 MYSPACE

A website that was once the dominating social networking until Facebook came
into the scene.
Failure reasons

 Because of the growth of Facebook, Myspace started seeing decline of their

users.
 The flexibility and free expression allowed on the Myspace platform was once
its biggest differentiator which became the most common reason for users
leaving.
 It couldn’t compete with its competitor Facebook.
COMMODORE CORP.

In the 1970s and 1980s commodores desktop computers were a huge success.

Failure reasons

 Due to their lower resources and economy of scale, commodore couldn’t keep
up with the PC advancements.
 Its customers started to complain about the custom ECS chipsets, which failed
to match the features of the PC and Mac display hardware at the time.
 Commodore failed to innovate something new.
SEARS

Sears, a department store company had one of the tallest towers in the world in
1973 and was in general a success.

Failure reasons

 Sears couldn’t compete with new generation of large retailers like walmart and
kmart and lost sight of what they were good at.
 The competitors shifted away from the general store model while sears found it
difficult to adapt to the changing consumer tastes.
 MACY’S

Macy’s, an American departmental store chain that still to this day is known as
America’s largest departmental store.
Failure reasons

 Macys believed that they knew their customers well and so kept their concept of
traditional store intact.
 One of its biggest competitors QVC instead of forcing to go to an actual store
the store came to them via the QVC channel and it worked out well for the
customers.
HITACHI

Japanese brand Hitachi used to be one of the electronic giant together with Sony
and Panasonic.
Failure reasons

 Couldn’t cope with the digital revolution.

 Couldn’t find out innovative measures in the electronic gadgets.
POLAROID

Founded in 1937, Polaroid was one of America’s early high tech success stories.

Failure reasons

 Due to boom of digital photography.

 They couldn’t match the customer expectancy.
TOSHIBA

Toshiba, a Japanese company was one of the most innovative companies

considered as a tech giant in the mid 1980s.
Failure reasons

 The internet killed Toshiba growth.

 People buying their competitors computers for lower prices online.
 Toshiba laptops performed like desktops which was main reason for its
downfall.

RADIOSHACK
 An American retailer founded in1921 operated a chain of electronics stores for
more than 50 years.
Failure reasons

 Competition with Amazon and Wal-Mart.

 RadioShack’s failed attempts to spice up their game with new marketing
strategies.
 Smart phones also lead to a decline in RadioShack sales as the modern smart
phones could do nearly everything that RadioShack sold.
 The company completely missed the maker movement. A movement where
DIYers applied their work onto tech and engineering pursuits.
 RadioShack lacked the inventory that many of the DIYers were looking for.
MOTOROLA

Motorola demonstrated the first handheld phone in 1973.

Failure reasons

 Battery life of its phones was not satisfactory.

 Motorola failed to see that customers wanted innovation in software rather than
hardware.
 Motorola lacked market knowledge.
 Motorola’s new products in the early 2000s weren’t enough to grow the
business.
 The products weren’t user friendly.
 Motorola missed the movement of 3G.
 Motorola didn’t implement 21st century communication to its products, making
it hard to compete with smart phones in the market.
BORDERS

It opened its first bookstore in 1971 and they were a success for years.
Failure reasons

 Borders failed to adapt to new technologies and never embraced the internet like
Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
 As more people began to order books online the downfall of borders was
visible.
 The overall strategy killed the company.
 Borders opened too many stores making it harder to shed unprofitable locations
and they were many.
PALM
 Palm is one of the top three companies that dominated the market for personal
digital assistants (PDAs).
Failure reasons

 Because of the launch of Apples Iphone and Blackberry, palm was unable to
respond to its success.
 The company was too slow to realize that smart phone customers wanted
wireless voice and data from the device.
 Palm couldn’t find the formula for over-the-air synchronization with Microsoft
Outlook, which business user’s demanded.
SONY

Sony, a manufacturer of electronic products, changed the way we listen to

music with the invention of the walkman in 1979.
Failure reasons

 Sony didn’t adapt to the technological innovations such as digitalization, the

shift towards software and the growth of illegally downloadable music online.
 The company was too afraid to test out something new, thinking it would
threaten their compatibilities on the market.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

One of the most respected brands history, it started as the official magazine of
the National Geographic society published continuously since 1888.
Failure reasons

 The company was presented with an idea to start a new National Geographic
cable channel in 1980s which was refused and the group of producers who
pitched the idea decided to do their own thing and launched discovery channel
along with history channel.
PAN AM

Pan American world airways, an airline that was once known as a brand ahead
of its time.
Failure reasons

 Because of tragic accidents and terrorists attacks, pan am suffered a reputational

set back that they couldn’t recover from.
 Trust was lost of the customers and it was associated with being the unsafe.
NIKE (FUELBAND)
 A bracelet for fitness tracking. Nike fuel band was launched in 2012 by Nike.
Failure reasons

 The product wasn’t really a necessity that needed to exist.

 Mostly because of the executives at Nike committed gross negligence, wasted
tons of money but didn’t give a satisfactory product as it failed in the
marketplace.
CIRCUIT CITY

Circuit city was an American multinational consumer electronics Retail

Company founded in 1949 and was one of the pioneers in 1970s in marketing
televisions, stereos, and boom boxes.
Failure reasons

 The company carried out a concept of mass retailing automobiles which was hit
but during this time it let go a lot of talented management where its downfall
began.
 Their competitor best buy started taking off and circuit city didn’t know how to
compete.
 To save money it fired almost 3400 of its experienced salespersons.
 People started complaining about the lack of knowledge of its salespersons and
that the stores were too big and impersonal.
GOOGLE GLASS

An American multinational technology company specialized in internet related

services and products.
Failure reasons

 The price was bit too high.

 Privacy concerns related to it.
NETSCAPE

Netscape was one of the most popular internet browsers in late 90s and was a
favorite in academia in early days of the internet.
Failure reasons

 It could not compete with internet explorer and other competitors.

ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH

 American fashion brand Abercrombie & Fitch was once one of the trendiest
casual wear and accessory brands in the early 2000s.
Failure reasons

 The statements made by CEO that “we would rather burn clothes than giving to
poor people” created conflict and this is how the brand became the most hated
brand in US.
 It came as outdated and offensive now to teens.
HUMMER

Hummer, a vehicle that was made for military purpose. It was a big, expensive
and tough vehicle that fit to action hero’s image.
Failure reasons

 It was pricy a bit too much.

 It created a sense of environmental issue.
 A gas guzzler; the h1was reported to get a whopping 8-12 mpg (Miles Per
Gallon), during the peak of the 2000s energy crisis, sales of this vehicle
plummeted for “gas – sippers” instead.
MAPQUEST

MapQuest used to be one of the best options for a web mapping service.
Failure reasons

 The company failed to adapt to changes.

 Comparison between Google maps and MapQuest made it clear that the
MapQuest interface was a mess as it was hard to even understand where to look
at.
ATARI

Atari was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles and home
computers.
Failure reasons

 The views towards gaming as an industry were flawed.

 They viewed gaming as an individual process rather than a shared experience
which was the complete opposite of their original design.

TOYS R US
 A kid’s toy retailer, TOYS R US, was once one of the largest toy store chains.

Failure reasons

 The brand signed its own death when signing a 10 year contract to be an
exclusive vendor of toys on Amazon.
 Amazon despite the deal allowed other toy vendors to sell on its site too.
TOYS R US sued but failed and as a result missed the opportunity to develop its
own e - commerce presence.
PETS .COM

Pets.com, launched in 1998 used to be an online business selling pet accessories

and supplies.

Failure reasons

 Due to brands weak fundamentals and poor timing their 300 million dollars
investment capital vanished along with the company in 2000 during the dot.com
bubble.
 There were no plug and play solutions for e-commerce management and
customer service that could scale.

TOWERS RECORD

A retail music chain that was first to create the concept of the retail music store.

Failure reasons

 Tower records couldn’t keep up with the digital disruptions such as music
piracy and streaming services.
 Napster, a peer to peer file sharing internet service, spread like a virus when it
launched in 1999.also began the downfall of the record industry.
HMV

CD, VHS and video game retailer HMV is a brand that was popular in the
1990s.
Failure reasons

 Due to rise in online services and e-commerce.

 COMPANY began to struggle with digital disruptions.
 HMV refused to believe the bloom of online retailers or people will start to
downloading music.
COMPAQ
 Compaq was a company founded in 1982 that sold, developed and supported
computers.
Failure reasons

 The company struggled to keep up with the price wars against DELL and was
acquired for 25 billion dollars by HP in 2002.
ENRON

Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services

company which was named as America’s most innovative company by fortune
from 1996 to 2001.
Failure reasons

 Dotcom bubble burst and Enron quickly began building high speed broadband
telecom networks .This project ended up costing a fortune for the company with
no return in profit.
HOSTESS

Hostess was a company known for its highly processed foods.

Failure reasons

 They failed to keep up with the taste trends and rebrand themselves and laying
off 18,500 workers
GENERAL MOTORS

General motors, was a corporation that used to design, market, manufacture,

and distribute vehicles and vehicle parts.
Failure reasons

 They avoided investing in new technologies that could have improved the
quality of its product to meet the changing needs of customers.
 They failed to innovate and ignored the amount of competition.

AMERICAN ONLINE
 In the mid 1990s America online was one of the only providers of the internet
together with Trumpet Winsock.
Failure reasons

 Because of Microsoft Messenger, American online feared losing its customers

and failed to come up with a new strategy and failed big time.
 The decline of dial up and rise of broadband led to a rapid decline in monthly
customers.
 In 2002 American online attempted to merge with time Warner, a large media
company. A deal worth $350 billion fell flat for a slew of reasons resulting in
the biggest failed merger of the 21st century.
CLINTON CARDS

Known for its greeting cards, Clinton cards used to hold a 25% share of the
greeting card market.
Failure reasons

 When everything started to shift online, their stores started losing the appeal and
it became a dying business.
NORTEL

It was a multinational telecom and data networking equipment manufacturer.

Failure reasons

 Their research and development team had fallen behind.

 The business began to decline because of broadband and VoIP.
 Around the year 2000 Nortel had misstated their financials which wasn’t
discovered for a number of years.
 The leaders of company were blamed of fraud and fired in2004.
XFL

The XFL was operated between NBC and world wrestling federation and it was
made as an outdoor football league.
Failure reasons

 XFL football league didn’t show anything new as compared to their competitor
NFL.
 The rating of XFL dropped significantly.
THE SHARPER IMAGE
 The sharper image, a consumer electronics and lifestyle product company, was
founded in 1977and got massively popular due to its ionic breeze air purifier.

Failure reasons

 While the rest of the world was changing the sharper image remained the same
while making a lot of strategic mistakes.
 The company depended too much on the air purifier’s success and consumer
reports started questioning the safety of the product with that started returning
the faulty products.
DAILY

The first digital Ipad - only newspaper launched in 2011.

Failure reasons

 Couldn’t reach a large audience.

 The revenue the daily gained was split between Apple but that model was
unsustainable.
 Readers were only able to access the newspaper after a paid subscription
through the iTunes store.
THE CONCORDE

The Concorde was a British - French turbojet - powered airline.

Failure reasons

 Technical flaws.
 Financial challenges.
 Extremely noisy sound of the airplane.
 High energy consumption made it impossible to carry on.
TIVO

Tivo was one of the first digital video recording (DVR) products to come to
market.
Failure reasons

 They attempted to sue cable companies too late who came out with their own
DVRs.
PEBBLE

Pebble Corporation developed a line of smart watches.

 Failure reasons

 The market was still very small and not matured enough to sustain the type of
predicted growth.
DELOREAN MOTOR

The Delorean motor company was an American automobile manufacturer

founded in 1975 in Northern Ireland.
Failure reasons

 Shoddy performance of the cars.

 Much hyped cars with limited performance.
Reasons Of Failure Of These
Companies

Electronics company

Clothing companies
Food companies

Music companies
 Some Startup Failures
VIU

Launched in 2015 it was a Hong Kong based OTT video streaming provider
from PCCW media, a subsidiary of PCCW.
Failure reasons

 Couldn’t succumb to the competitive and complex Indian market.

 Budget constraints.
BTVi

Business television India of Bloomberg TV India was an English news channel

in business domain.
Failure reasons

 Financial crisis.
 Large number of liabilities.
DOODHWALA

Established in 2015 the hyper local delivery platform worked on subscription

model to deliver milk and groceries directly to customer’s doorsteps.
Failure reasons

 It failed to raise subsequent financing.

 Competitors like Big Basket made its sustenance impossible.
RUSSSH

Started in 2012, RUSSSH was an on demand delivery service offering first mile
and last mile solutions to individuals and businesses.
Failure reasons

 Challenges in raising funds.

 Since it lacked capital it couldn’t offer great discounts like other emergent
players.
 LOANMEET

Founded in 2015, it attempted to revolutionize banking at the grass root level.

Failure reasons

 Couldn’t sustain the competition.

 Failed to raise further investments.
KOINEX

It was a exchange company founded in 2015 that maintained a high standard of

service in trading of digital assets.
Failure reasons

 Regularly disrupted owing to delays by government agencies in clarifying the

regulatory framework for crypto currencies.
TINY OWL

Tiny owl was an Indian based food delivery service startup.

Failure reasons

 No artificial intelligence used.

 No data analytics when ordering from the app.
 Fewer orders and not giving discounts.
 The uncoordinated hiring and later retrenchment.

PEPPER TAP

It was founded in 2014 to deliver groceries to neighborhoods from local stores.

Failure reasons

 Lacking technological resources.

 Too many stores opened online far too quickly.
 Unable to conserve funds to keep the company financially solvent.
 Sometimes customers would be unable to view all items for sale.
 FASHIONARA

It was a Bangalore based fashion and lifestyle retailer.

Failure reasons

 Lack of funding.
 Heavy losses.
 Huge rivalries from Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong.
DAZO

It was a Bangalore based food tech startup.

Failure reasons

 Short of capital.
 Lack of funding.

MAIN REASONS FOR FAILURE OF

STARTUPS
 Lack of Funding.
 Lack of sufficient Capital
 Unable To Cope With The High End Competition.

SIMILARITIES AMONG FAILURE REASONS OF THE OLD

COMPANIES AND RECENT STARTUPS

Lack of funds raised.

Lack of capital.
Not able to sustain market competition.
Unable to grab customer attention.