Netflix Case Analysis Essay

The third issue affecting Netflix is the age of movies that they offer to their customers. Netflix cannot deliver the newest movie titles online because they are not offered through VOD for at least a month after they come out on DVD. This is a huge disadvantage to their customers that exclusively use Netflix’s online service. This is the only advantage that Blockbuster still has over Netflix, because if someone wants to see a movie the day that it comes out on video then

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,

Growing competition as a challenge represents the various companies that are now entering the market of online media-streaming. Companies such as HBO, Amazon, Google, and Hulu Plus have all began to offer media-streaming on the same electronic devices as Netflix, Inc. Currently Netflix, Inc. remains in the lead amongst its competitors; however, there is no guarantee that this advancement is a permanent one. It is inevitable that emerging companies will come up with creative ideas to gain the competitive edge and receive more consumers. For example, Amazon.com has “amplified

As the brand value of Netflix became more and more recognized, the key point here was to take the benefit of their current strength, and market ratio, which they had really captured and gained in high percentages, and then evaluate its financial position, and understand the risks or threats they may be taking.

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 is the world’s largest online movie rental service. We provide over 100,000 choices of DVDs to more than eight million of our subscribers. We saw how the Internet is changing the way people buy and sell goods. We saw an opportunity in the movie rental industry and decided to provide a novel product and service from the convenience of ones home. Here’s how Netflix works. First Netflix customers choose which type of monthly package they want. They then make a list of movies that they want to watch. Movies are then shipped to the customer. After the customer has viewed their movies they send the movies back and we send them the next title on their list. All with no late fees or shipping fees.

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.

The dismal financial performance of Blockbuster and Movie Gallery confirm that competitive conditions for earning attractive profits are pretty tough. Netflix, on the other hand, is doing very, very well from the standpoints of revenue growth and financial performance. (This is true of Redbox, as well, which is the subject of the next case)

Netflix, founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings, has achieved its goal of becoming the largest online movie rental service in the world. By the end of 2007, Netflix recorded revenues of $1.2 billion. With a library of 100,000 movie titles and a subscriber base of over

Netflix mission statement is: "Our core strategy is to grow our streaming subscription business domestically and globally. We are continuously improving the customer experience, with a focus on expanding our streaming content, enhancing our user interface, and extending our streaming service to even more Internet-connected devices, while staying within the parameters of our consolidated net income and operating segment contribution profit targets." (10-K Item 1)

Netflix strengths include a wide brand recognition within a mass-market space. Additionally, Netflix deals directly with the association with has availability to a variety of movie content providers. This business model builds on the accessibility of Netflix already extraordinary 60,000 plus titles; the current user of Netflix exceed “57 million members in nearly 50 countries” (Netflix : Overview," n.d.). Netflix has also capitalized on the establish logistics of the US Postal System as their delivery system and kept the DVD home delivery to supplement the video streaming revenues.

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.

This report explains the introduction of digital transformation or innovation in an entertainment company called Netflix. Netflix can be used to demonstrate how anybody could go from sitting in their bedrooms to becoming a global brand. Netflix is a well-known company for their capability to let people allow to stream videos, movies, TV shows and on almost any electronic device for a monthly subscription. This report involves how entertainment companies are using online monthly subscriptions for providing easy access to shows, movies, songs, videos etc. This report also creates a clear picture of challenges faced by Netflix with online subscriptions. Currently, Netflix is world’s one of the leading Internet television network includes more than 50 million subscribers in nearly 50 countries liking more than two

This essay will provide insights and sufficient background to understand Netflix’s success and difficulties the company is facing.