For Fujifilm, the future comes in many hues

[SINGAPORE] The story of Japan's Fujifilm - how the company not only survived, but thrived as its once market-leading rival Kodak fell into bankruptcy - is now standard fare for business school case studies.

But few who knew Fujifilm for rollfilm and its green shopfronts, perhaps, know of how Fujifilm's transformation has led into the realm of medical and life sciences systems, healthcare supplements, and even its own cosmetics line.

To Hiroyuki Sakai, managing director at Fujifilm Asia Pacific here in Singapore, that story, so closely intertwined with his own 37-year career at Fujifilm, now continues here in Asia.

Back in 2004, he was put in charge of Fujifilm's 4,000 employees-strong wholesale photo finishing business in America. That year, film demand plunged as digital cameras hit the mass-market, and he found himself in a front-row se…