Member-only story
Off Brand
One Company’s Pandemic Shortage Is Another’s Golden Opportunity
How companies like Canon are cashing in on the shortage boom
Just a few weeks into the pandemic lockdowns, as toilet paper and Clorox wipes were becoming a rarified luxury, another shortage quietly emerged: webcams. Lots of people, suddenly thrust into the now-familiar world of constant Zoom calls, remote classrooms, and videoconferences, were scrambling to buy what had previously been a sleepy product, and there weren’t enough webcams to go around.
Canon, the camera-maker, spotted this shortage early — and saw an unexpected opportunity.
To be clear, Canon did not make webcams, and has no plans to start. But within three weeks its engineering and software teams developed free software that would make it easy for Canon owners to convert their cameras into webcams. “A lot of customers didn’t know it would be feasible to do this,” says Rita Dubey, a senior director of customer experience marketing and strategy at the 83-year-old company. It was “a completely different use case.” For the consumer — and for Canon.
As the pandemic has worn on, the pivots and innovations have become more imaginative, rarified, and surprising.
