Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 32759
A Process of Forming a Single Competitive Factor in the Digital Camera Industry

Authors: Kiyohiro Yamazaki

Abstract:

This paper considers a forming process of a single competitive factor in the digital camera industry from the viewpoint of product platform. To make product development easier for companies and to increase product introduction ratios, development efforts concentrate on improving and strengthening certain product attributes, and it is born in the process that the product platform is formed continuously. It is pointed out that the formation of this product platform raises product development efficiency of individual companies, but on the other hand, it has a trade-off relationship of causing unification of competitive factors in the whole industry. This research tries to analyze product specification data which were collected from the web page of digital camera companies. Specifically, this research collected all product specification data released in Japan from 1995 to 2003 and analyzed the composition of image sensor and optical lens; and it identified product platforms shared by multiple products and discussed their application. As a result, this research found that the product platformation was born in the development of the standard product for major market segmentation. Every major company has made product platforms of image sensors and optical lenses, and as a result, this research found that the competitive factors were unified in the entire industry throughout product platformation. In other words, this product platformation brought product development efficiency of individual firms; however, it also caused industrial competition factors to be unified in the industry.

Keywords: Digital camera industry, product evolution trajectory, product platform, unification of competitive factors.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3300346

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 587

References:


[1] Foster, R., (1986) Innovation: The Attacker’s Advantage, Summit Books.
[2] Abernathy, W. and J. Utterback (1978) “Patterns of Industrial Innovation,” Technology Review, 80, 7, pp.40-47.
[3] Utterback, J. M. (1994) Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, Harvard Business School Press.
[4] Bazzell, R. and B. Gale (1987) The PIMS Principles, Free Press.
[5] Sanchez, R. R. (1995) “Strategic Flexibility in Product Competition,” Strategic Management Journal, 16, Summer Special Issue, pp.135-159.
[6] Sanchez, R. R. and J. T. Mahoney (1996) “Modularity, Flexibility, and Knowledge Management in Product and Organization Design,” Strategic Management Journal, 17, Winter Special Issue, pp.63-76.
[7] Worren, N., and K. Moore and P. Cardona (2002) “Modularity, Strategic Flexibility, and Firm Performance: A Study of the Home Appliance Industry,” Strategic Management Journal, 23, pp. 1123-1140.
[8] Garud, R. and P. R. Nayyar (1994)”Transformative Capacity: Continual Structuring by Intertemporal Technology Transfer,” Strategic Management Journal, Vol.15, pp.365-385.
[9] Gawer, A. and M. Cusumano (2002) Platform Leadership, Harvard Business School Press.
[10] Meyer, M. and A. Lehnerd (1997) The Power of Product Platforms, Free Press.
[11] Cusumano, M, and K. Nobeoka (1998) Thinking beyond Lean: How Multi Project Management is Transforming Product Development at Toyota and Other Companies, Free Press.
[12] Nobeoka, K., (2006) MOT Nyumon, Nihonkeizai shimbunsha in Japanese.
[13] Sakakibara, K., (1988) “seihinsenryaku no zentaisei”, in Kyoso to Kakushin, Toyo keizaisya in Japanese.