GoPro In 2020 1 GoPro In 2020: Have its Turnaround Strategies Failed James Cardwell Adams State University Global Business Strategies 5/28/2023 GoPro In 2020 2 I owned a GoPro at one point. I am involved in some sports like snowboarding and I have filmed compilations with friends doing tricks in the parks and free riding the slopes. I figured a GoPro could be a natural progression for getting involved in filming action sports. I purchased the latest model and a gimbal type attachment that I believe was also waterproof. The camera cost something like $500. I had the money at the time and didn’t really think about it but looking back it was a ton of money for something with such a specific use case scenario. I actually ended up never using it and selling it to a friend who actually ended up bringing it back to me because he couldn’t figure out the user interface. To be fair it was difficult to use. It had a tiny 2 inch by 2 inch touchscreen and the inputs were laggy and the menus were deeply layered so it was hard to find what you wanted and it took forever to go deep into submenus and reverse back out to go through a different branch of options. We can kind of see a similar story with entry level digital cameras in the early 2000s. Cameras used to be a thing that people owned and took on vacations. You could use the camera to take photos and then eventually print the photos using printer paper or use higher quality film paper at a Walgreens or something like that. It was a strange era. People took photos with these cameras and uploaded them to social media like Facebook and Myspace. It wasn’t all phone based like it is not. But phones are what killed the digital camera industry. It was as phones became more ubiquitous that the camera as a standalone accessory became obsolete. Now if you go to a photography store you won’t really see tiny digital cameras anymore. The camera offering is entirely professional level with large flash apparatuses and DSLR type shutters usually ranging $700 and up. The smartphone industry edged its way into the camera industry. The cameras on smartphones became equal to those offered by a GoPro In 2020 3 standalone device and thus the standalone device became un-needed. The same thing happened with GPS navigators. There used to be these little touchscreen boxes that you could mount to your dashboard and they were made mostly by Garmin. This was before smartphones had GPS navigation apps or apps in general. They were a standalone device which acted as Google maps. These also became obsolete through the same process as smartphones which had the same capabilities became owned by everyone. The reason I bring this up is because I think this is what’s happening to GoPro and its why they are failing as a company. Smartphones used to have the same capabilities as standalone digital cameras. But those capabilities have expanded. The latest commercials by Apple and Samsung showcase the abilities of the smartphones to capture fast motion, dark scenes, and even advanced image stabilization. All of these things used to be the selling point of a GoPro. However, why would I as a consumer want to spend $500 on a stabilizing camera like a GoPro when I can use a device I already have. A device only needs to have 80% of the features in order to push the GoPro out of market. Most of the people who purchase a GoPro will not use it to the full extent of its capabilities. Even the aftermarket accessory market favors this. The widespread use of something like an Iphone means you have more accessories available for GoPro use scenarios. For example I am certain I can find a deep free diving accessory for the latest model of IPhone so I can use my IPhone to film myself scuba diving just as easily as I can purchase the same kit from GoPro. The weight of a GoPro is about the same as the latest IPhone. Having either one mounted to a helmet while engaged in extreme sports would be equally noticeable. I will however concede that GoPro does have one use scenario in which it outperforms a smartphone. The end use for my $500 GoPro Hero 5 was that it was to be mounted on my DJI drone. It was about half the weight of GoPro In 2020 4 the Iphone. In case you don’t know the weight of accessories on a drone are fairly extreme in how little weights can drastically impact performance and flight time. The weights are measured in grams for applications like this. So a GoPro was feasible as an upgraded replacement camera but an Iphone was not. I can see from the textbook that GoPro attempted to move from the audio visual hardware market into the video editing software market. In my opinion that market is fairly saturated and the products that people have been using to edit video like Adobe Premier and, at the other end of the spectrum, windows movie maker have been around for decades and have so much of an advantage against a newcomer. Someone who has used Adobe Premier for years is not going to switch to a new type of software. I will concede though that sometimes by forcing a consumer to use a specific type of software you can force adaptation. I would think now that the most used video editing software in the world in terms of users per day and user hours is the built in TikTok video editing software. This is funny because it is likely the most basic and feature scarce type of software available. But by being included in the app has made itself almost by accident the most popular software in the world for its purpose. I don’t think this will work for GoPro. I think it was already too late. They should have included the video editing software from the beginning so they could force users into their ecosystem. Now that the hardware is no longer popular they don’t have a way to funnel users into using the software. Its really interesting seeing what GoPro’s competitors were doing at this time. Garmin, for example was focusing on the use case scenario as a dash cam for drivers. Other competitors would develop mini cameras for use as police body cameras. GoPro In 2020 5 I think that for GoPro to grow and succeed they should have been less complacent. I think that earlier around 2016 they should have focused on their strength which was hardware and researched and developed specialized hardware for new use cases. New types of optical hardware have many uses. A 360 degree camera for example has uses for recording environments for virtual reality, aviation systems, and military guidance systems. Right now there is a lot of demand for 360 cameras for VR and GoPro could have been at the forefront. They also could have made specialized products for police body-cams and dash-cam systems. Both of which would have been fairly easy given their current products and their company image could have commanded a premium price tag. They could have an entire ecosystem like Apple for all camera products a single consumer might own like dash cams and security cameras. The GoPro system could integrate hardware and software in a similar way as Apple to have a synergistic effect where you can review and manage your home security and dashcam footage as needed and it all could be uploaded to the GoPro cloud that is included with their hardware and editing software. This type of ecosystem is incredibly effective at keeping consumers inside the system. A consumer with a GoPro security system is likely to buy a GoPro dash-cam because they know what they will be getting. They won’t have to learn a new interface or content management software. Also the systems will be designed to work together. I think this should have been GoPro’s roadmap in the years leading up to 2020. GoPro In 2020 6 References Arthor, G. (2023, February 22). Is GoPro failing as a company? PetaPixel. Retrieved May 3, 2023, from https://petapixel.com/2019/01/23/is-gopro-failing-as-a-company/ Ion, R. (2019, June 18). Smartphones killed the digital camera industry. TechTheLead. Retrieved May 3, 2023, from https://techthelead.com/smartphones-killed-the-digital-cameraindustry/ Lovejoy, B. (2021, December 9). IPhone 13 diary: The Video Stabilization Performance is incredibly impressive. 9to5Mac. Retrieved May 3, 2023, from https://9to5mac.com/2021/12/09/iphone-13-video-stabilization-test/ THOMPSON, A. R. T. H. U. R. A. (2021). Crafting and executing strategy concepts. MCGRAW-HILL US HIGHER ED.
