Case Study - Netflix Rollercoaster

This is primarily because there is no product differentiation in the market. Additionally, Netflix would then lose its flagship brand essence the supportive roles played by these two integral competencies of the company. The well-developed IT management allowed Netflix to move from DVD only to DVD and streaming, allowing the tap into the streaming market and a chance for the company to expand business.

The downturn of the economy has taken away many peoples disposable income and Netflix’s limited online library may have caused customers to question if it was worth it or not.

Blockbuster Entertainment, Inc. was once a highly successful and profitable brick and mortar home movie and video game rental store. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster had up to 60,000 employees and more than 9,000 stores. The idea behind Netflix came from an unsatisfied, embarrassed customer of Blockbuster, Mr. Reed Hastings, now CEO of Netflix, paid a $40 late fee because he returned the movie Apollo 13 six weeks later (Zarafshar, 2013). He began to contemplate ingeniously about a notion to change the movie-leasing pattern into a more pioneering industry. In 1997 Netflix was started as a DVD rental-by-mail business without subscriptions. In 1999, taking a stride additional in the direction of evolving the industry, Hastings began the subscription-based business mode based on renting DVDs by mail with plans reliant on the quantity of titles taken at a time. Netflix put forward 120,000 titles for limitless monthly DVD rental with free shipping no late and per title fees. Since that time Netflix has become one of the most popular subscription services in the world, and is now valued at over $28 billion and steadily increasing. What factors contributed to the success and failure of these two companies?

The year 2011 was considered the “Lost Year” for Netflix as about 1 million of their subscribers dropped their service. Why did this drastic loss of subscribed customers occur and what wrong move did Netflix make to attract such a decrease in subscribers? According to Thompson (2012, p. 127), in June of 2011 Netflix announced a new price plan that caused a 60 percent raise in the the monthly subscription fee for customers who were paying $9.99 per month for access to an unlimited amount of movies and TV shows streamed over the internet and secondly, receiving a limitless number of DVDs every month (by mail one title at a time). Netflix also tried providing its online streaming process through

I think being the first one to allow movie streaming has created many loyal consumers and brand recognition. However, this industry is getting more competitive and complex as other big corporations enter the market offering a very similar service. I think Netflix still has opportunity for growth and its management will help guide this company in the right direction. Two major factors other than technology that I think will have impact long-term is their pricing strategy and ability to form

Netflix needs to stay with the current trends of customers world-wide, keep creating Netflix original series, and keep updating their system when new devices are invented or entertainment improves. Netflix is a phenomenal way to stream the best content that is currently available to users and if they continue to provide excellent customer service at an affordable rate then I will continue to be a loyal customer for many years to

Entering and transforming the video rental industry was a large undertaking for the start-up company. The first marketing objective the company undertook was the process of building a brand. Netflix’s identity was crucial to future growth and success. Without a strong brand, competitors with deep pockets could have easily duplicated the company’s business model. Secondly, leveraging technology was critical to establishing the business and infrastructure growth. The consumer base was the final objective Netflix sought to achieve. Retaining and growing subscribers were fundamental to revenue and marketing goals.

The main problem facing Netflix is the pending conflict with its content providers. Netflix has low bargaining power both over suppliers and buyers, and this represents an existential threat to the business. Netflix has proven to be a popular service, but despite the successes of its first ten years, there is now evidence that it has not fostered much brand loyalty, and that its customers are quite price sensitive. Combine this with the fact that its content suppliers are becoming direct competitors in the online streaming business and Netflix is in significant danger of having its growth trajectory derailed.

Content costs are so expensive that they derail reasonable projects. Netflix realized it had a problem as it was paying out substantial large sums to license other people’s content such as television shows and movies produced by other companies in order to show them to its customers at home. This left Netflix vulnerable to

One of the struggles for Netflix has always been getting rights to programming. In an effort to save DVD sales Hollywood studios tried to weaken their streaming services by withholding the rights or by charging more for newer movies. Big studios like Warner Bros., Fox and Universal made deals that allowed Netflix to use old movies but only if it waited twenty-eight days after the release of a new DVD before making it available to the public (Balio, 2013). Film executives believe that Netflix is taking the value out of movies by making them available anywhere, anytime (Kaiser, 2011). The fees do not stop them however. The more subscriptions Netflix receives, the more revenue they bring in and the more willing they are to pay the high fees to get films from the studios and the cycle is brought full circle, the more films, the more subscribers (Roth, 2009).

This also allows their content to be viewed virtually anywhere. The fact that they teamed up with Oracle to work on their website was a very beneficial move as this gives them somewhat propitiatory technology. I personally enjoy their recommendations and it is obvious that with their next arrival that they have strong logistics. They have a big cost advantage too. If I can stream a whole season of How I Met Your Mother in one day, I feel as though the $8.99 that I spent was a good investment and yet I still have another 29 or 30 days to go. The two times that I had to deal with their customer service; they quality of service was outstanding and I’ve heard many other wonderful testimonials. When looking at weaknesses, I feel that their inability to provide new releases is a major drawback. In addition to this, they need to amp the selection for online streaming since streaming is expanding rapidly. The issue at hand with streaming is that it can potentially lead to server crashes if there are too many users on at once. Netflix can also be very enticing to hackers since there is so much personal information stored. I would say that the biggest opportunity for Netflix would to be to make deals with the movie production companies to allow Netflix to offer new releases. To feed off of that, they need to increase their variety; particularly in the selection of indie and international films. With as

As the world entered into the 21st Century, humanity has witnessed an ecology of innovation that ranges from artificial hearts and livers to iPods to Bluetooth technology to smartphones and many more ("21st Century Inventions That Made an Impact”). Each with its own unique attraction has become a catalyst in nature for how individuals think, act and live. Along with these state of the art developments, Netflix has become the cutting – edge service for internet streaming media. Deemed as “a worthless piece of crap” from Wall Street analysts, Netflix with tremendous leadership gained control of their industry and swiftly transformed the delivery of movie rentals ("How Netflix Beat Blockbuster: An Exemplar of Emerging Technologies”). Faced with impossible odds, we will discover how Netflix was able to survive, conquer and prosper as the emerging technology in their industry.

Netflix exhibits dominant economic characteristics in the online movie rental business. They enjoy strong market size and growth rate when compared to rivalry competition. The number of rivalries are increasing, and the market remains dominated by only a few sizeable rivalries like Blockbuster Video, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney Movies and Movielink’s Downloadable Movies. Netflix is determined to offer new and innovative technology to sustain their competitive advantage.

On average a customer loses 200 plus films they have rated when they use an alternate media provider such as Blockbuster or Walmart. Following that year, Blockbuster and Walmart launched similar platforms to Netflix, making Netflix’s’ churn rate fall. However, big name competitors such as those did not pose a substantial threat to Netflix given that their value proposition had been growing stronger and stronger over time. One large advantage that Netflix had was they were always the first to offer new media and new deliveries.

Video-on-demand or VOD, a service that allows users to select and watch videos over the internet, will be one of the greatest innovation as stated in the Netflix case study. It will be a great opportunity for Netflix, but it will also be a challenge to integrate or do away with its current business model. Its current business model is one that relies on the internet and the post service to deliver DVDs to its subscribers. Netflix should carefully enter the VOD market without doing away with its current model. This will allow it to maintain its growing position as a giant in this media industry. In order to better understand Netflix and the problems it faces, we must first identify its strengths. What does Netflix offer its customers that its competitors do not? What differentiates it from its competitors?