Case Study : The Netflix Company Essay

The movie rental industry is a living industry; there are constant changes with advances in technology, rights management, and the slow, but steady, move away from physical Media. Companies such as Netflix, Hulu, RedBox, and Blockbuster are being forced to look at new business models and try to keep up with these changes.

Netflix was founded in 1997 with the intent to revolutionize the way in which consumers watch movies and television shows. Their accomplishments both in innovation and in customer base for their service indicate that the firm has been, and continues to be, successful in doing so. Currently, the

Netflix founder, Reed Hastings, recognized an unfulfilled need in the movie rental industry and started Netflix to provide customers with the ability to receive movies through the mail and not pay any late fees which were prevalent at the time with companies like Blockbuster (Kotler & Keller, 2009). Netflix has continued to expand its service offerings but providing members with the ability to download movies directly without any additional fees.

Netflix, an internet television network that is revolutionizing the way we watch TV series and movies without having to leave the comfort of our couch has over 50 million subscribers in more than 40 countries.

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?

1. Netflix’s original marketing strategy offered several flat-rate monthly subscription options; in which, members could stream movies and shows via the Internet or have disks sent to their homes in a pre-paid and pre-addressed envelope. Free from the despair of due dates and late fees, members could keep, up to, eight movies at a time. Upon the return of a disk, Netflix would automatically mail out the next movie from the customer’s video queue. Members were able to change and update their queues as frequently as they liked. The sheer innovation of Netflix’s strategy encouraged several competitors to enter the market to compete directly,

cheaper and more convenient alternatives such as cable/ satellite providers offering recordings via DVR, cell phones, tablets and other electronic devices

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 video rental industry began with brick and mortar store that rented VSH tape. Enhanced internet commerce and the advent of the DVD provided a opportunity for a new avenue for securing movie rentals. In 1998 Netflix headquartered in Los Gatos California began operations as a regional online movie rental company. While the firm demonstrated that a market for online rentals existed, it was not financially successfully. Netflix lost over $11 million in 1998 and as a result significantly changed the business model in 2000. The new strategy included focusing on becoming a nationally based subscription model and focusing on enhancing the subscribers experience on their website. The change in

the need for a retail store in every city. Netflix functions in a virtual environment

One the one hand, the fertility of the industry opened the doors to corporations that sighted substantial growth potential. New entrants with big pockets such as Walmart could pose a certain threat to Netflix, by exploiting a playing card based on cost reduction. On the other hand, barriers to entry became relatively significant as established video rental retailers such as Netflix have the experience and the knowhow to market movies to people. In this industry, firms that do not have a technological advantage can’t compete. The best example is Netflix’s CineMatch program that offered personalized film recommendations based on customer’s rental patterns. This way, Netflix was able to better serve its subscribers. From a cost perspective, the movie rental industry requires high capital expenditures, and the major expenses are highly related to acquisitions of DVD library and investments in technology (exhibit 2 continued). Thus, we may say that entry is difficult in this industry as the competing firms have reputation, experience and recognizable brand names.

Today’s workforce who want to be the technology “Hollywood” geeks, work for a company called Netflix Inc. Netflix is one of the largest publicly traded companies, that allows anyone, to watch movies and television shows when and where they want; based on a monthly subscription. They key to their success is their employees. The concept employee engagement has been described to be a result of continued research on work attitudes and it is stated to can add value extending beyond the boundaries of the traditional organizational settings. Employee engagement is referred as an essential part to success and survival of a company and is more effective if human resources (HR) is made part of the planning and decision making process. Netflix’s culture has made it possible for HR to influence the decision making and planning process as the culture focuses more on freedom and responsibility. The company’s culture focuses on helping realize excellence and most of it is done through employee engagement. It is through revamping of the HR that Netflix could fully achieve success and retention of much of their employees. The idea of integrated employee engagement in Netflix is one of the successful products of Silicon Valley and more companies are adopting the idea that employees should be granted more freedom. This paper will discuss the concept of integrated employee engagement with looking at how it as heightened performance and productivity at Netflix by: flexible work

“Netflix, Inc. is the world's largest online movie rental service, with more than 10 million subscribers (Netflix Media Center, 2009).”

Many of their competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, greater brand recognition and significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources than Netflix does. Some of their competitors have adopted, and may continue to adopt, aggressive pricing policies and devote substantially more resources to marketing and Web site and systems development than Netflix does. The rapid growth of their online entertainment subscription business since their beginning may attract direct competition from larger companies with significantly greater financial resources and national brand recognition. For instance in 2003 the extremely wealthy Wal-Mart used their online site to launch an online DVD subscription service, Wal-Mart DVD Rentals. With increased competition reduced operating margins may result as well as a loss of market share and reduced revenues. In addition, our competitors may form or extend strategic alliances with studios and distributors that could adversely affect our ability to obtain titles on favorable terms.