Operational Obstacles to SuccessBusinesses may face many different obstacles that will affect their ability to be efficient, innovative, and confident while meeting the demands of their customers. For a business to succeed, it is essential to identify these obstacles and create ways to overcome them. The purpose of this article is to identify some of these obstacles and the impact they can have on an organization. There are many tools that organizations can use to successfully advance their financial and innovation goals. One tool an organization can use to identify these obstacles is a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis allows an organization to examine its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. According to Mind When looking at what caused Kodak to fail instead of moving forward as technology advances, it comes down to people and assets. When Kodak started, employees were full of ideas. As Kotter (2012) explains, “Kodak was built on a culture of innovation and change. It’s the type of culture that is full of passionate innovators, already naturally attuned to the urgency of market and technological change” (Paragraph 5). As the company became more and more successful, managers became complacent and listened less to their innovations. Filing for bankruptcy allowed Kodak to start from scratch; they had to rethink their business strategy. By rethinking its business strategy, Kodak was able to start fresh with a new mindset that led to the disappearance of its fear of failure. “With this new mindset, organizational fear evaporated and a new, energetic focus on innovation emerged” (Baker, nd, para 6). If I were an executive at Kodak, to overcome the obstacles that Kodak went through, I would have ensured that there was dedicated time given to employees to focus on innovation. Given that Kodak was founded as a company built on a culture of innovation and change, a culture in which employee voices could be heard would be a top priority for me. Once complacency started to set in, changes should have been made. Operational barriers exist for all organizations, regardless of size. By being aware of the different obstacles, organizations can put processes in place to overcome them.