This morning I have mostly been embroiled in clauses and sub-clauses while attempting to digest some 260 pages of legalese relating to Kodak’s plans for re-emergence.

While I can’t claim to have gone through the documents with a fine-toothed comb – yet – I did discover a number of interesting snippets therein.

Take this, regarding Kodak’s “customer-level profitability actions”. In a nutshell, during its Chapter 11 process Kodak has deployed teams to carry out an in-depth review of its largest and least profitable global accounts, in order to discover whether things like the real costs associated with each customer have actually been assigned to that customer’s account.

Sounds basic? Yes indeedy.

And these actions have obviously been born out of necessity at Kodak.

But there is a wider lesson here. It’s easy to see how any business can easily lose sight of where profits are being made, or lost, across a diverse customer base.

At Kodak this exercise has resulted in price increases for some customers, product substitution, and even the cancellation of uneconomic contracts.

The resulting gain is put at a $90m improvement in gross profit, so a substantial figure no matter which way you cut it.

Unsurprisingly, Kodak now plans to carry out exactly the same exercise across a much larger tranche of mid-level customers.

You don’t have to be in Chapter 11 to see that a similar exercise could provide a useful boost to the bottom line.