THE CANON CASE
The canon case is a beautiful example of how a firm can achieve great success by using its capabilities and resources and how the use of those resources and capabilities can impact more and more on the creation of new firm internal competences throughout time and space.
Canon, a company created in 1933, can be defined as a firm always striving to use its existing resources- in all fields, the production, the marketing and sales and especially the technology- to create new distinctive competences and by this also the basis of an competitive advantage in the overall market. The Success story begins in the late 1950`s with the introduction of the first electronic calculator, and continues up to the 1990`s with the expansion into the market of bubble jet printers.
The first challenge of Canon can be described as the creation of competition to Leica in the high quality/ high price photo industry. This development by itself created distinctive competences in the field of optics technology for the firm and led to the expansion into the micrographic equipment technology. The first "innovation" launched in the early 1960`s was the electronic calculator. To enable its production a new technology was developed that combined microelectronics with the existing technologies to incorporate thousands of transistors and diodes in the most compact way. In the late 50`s however, the research into the copier technology had begun to challenge Canon. This research was basically driven by the goal of creating a new family of copier, more precisely a new generation of ppc copier.
The copier market had been dominated by Xerox, a firm which name was considered a synonymous in respect to the copying process. Xerox was the market leader in all ...