Change is inevitable!!
Many years ago I was told this story, considering the current state of Kodak I thought that it would be a interesting glimpse of how things were. As I stated this one is reaching back a few years do some of the details may be a little shaky but the story is true.
Tootons was a Kodak distributor in my home province of Newfoundland for as long as I can remember, turns out it goes back almost to the turn of the last century.
A young Immigrant named Tony Tooton took a ride on a steamship, crossing the atlantic. On the trip he encountered a young George Eastman. They met while playing poker, a easy way to pass the time on a long ocean voyage.
As the story goes young Mr. Tooton is a much more skilled poker player than Mr. Eastman, and therefore George Eastman ends up owing The young Tooton a substantial amount of money.
Mr. Eastman offers what would become a very lucrative deal. He offered exclusive rights to his business to Tooton for the then country of Newfoundland.
Mr Tooton accepted and turned the Kodak business in Newfoundland into a very lucrative multi generational business that lasted in to the 1990's.
From an outsider looking in it looked like the Tooton family had a lock on Kodak sine-age and distributing even though I had heard in later years that the deal ended when Newfoundland entered confederation.
Even with that change they survived for over 80 years many of them protecting a monopoly that had expired.
Tootons is long gone now(closed its doors in 1995), and unfortunately the power house that was once Kodak is now a shell of its former glory.
I guess the moral of the story is no matter how firm a grip you have on your market, when the market swings you adapt or cease to exist.
Tootons was a Kodak distributor in my home province of Newfoundland for as long as I can remember, turns out it goes back almost to the turn of the last century.
A young Immigrant named Tony Tooton took a ride on a steamship, crossing the atlantic. On the trip he encountered a young George Eastman. They met while playing poker, a easy way to pass the time on a long ocean voyage.
As the story goes young Mr. Tooton is a much more skilled poker player than Mr. Eastman, and therefore George Eastman ends up owing The young Tooton a substantial amount of money.
Mr. Eastman offers what would become a very lucrative deal. He offered exclusive rights to his business to Tooton for the then country of Newfoundland.
Mr Tooton accepted and turned the Kodak business in Newfoundland into a very lucrative multi generational business that lasted in to the 1990's.
From an outsider looking in it looked like the Tooton family had a lock on Kodak sine-age and distributing even though I had heard in later years that the deal ended when Newfoundland entered confederation.
Even with that change they survived for over 80 years many of them protecting a monopoly that had expired.
Tootons is long gone now(closed its doors in 1995), and unfortunately the power house that was once Kodak is now a shell of its former glory.
I guess the moral of the story is no matter how firm a grip you have on your market, when the market swings you adapt or cease to exist.
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