COMPANY OVERVIEW
Netflix is the provider of on demand online streaming of media and DVDs. The company headquarters in California, USA and is providing its services in North and South America, in Caribbean and in most parts of Europe. Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings founded the company in 1997 for the prime business of providing DVD on a fee per use basis. The business was a success and attracted huge customers and the subscribers were over 2 million within the first ten years of the formation of the company. The Netflix's streaming business had grown so quickly that within months the company had shifted from the fastest-growing customer of the United States Postal Service's first-class mail service to the biggest source of Internet traffic in North America in the evening. Netflix is considered to be the most successful dot com venture by The New York Times. The company announced the rebranding and restructuring of its DVD home media rentals. From the start the company operated in Unites States and now it is expanding in various continents and has captured various markets. With the recent pricing strategy where substantial increase in the monthly subscription has impacted the company negatively causing a loss in customers.
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
The company is operating in different countries around the globe and has to face many of the challenges of operating internationally. The impacts upon the company from different aspects are analyzed in detail. This transitional market landscape proves a challenge to Netflix as they must remain competitive with strong competitors in the DVD dominated market of today. In light of this challenging industry landscape the business strategies that the company has evolved will enable Netflix to ...
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...ITIES
• Digital Distribution; s digital distribution of video content becomes an increasingly popular viewing format, Netflix strategically positioned to serve as a bridge during the slow transition from physical DVD formats to digital streaming. Netflix is better positioned for this role than other firms because they already have an E-Commerce business model and a brand name.
• Partnerships and Profit Sharing Schemes; Partnerships with companies like Microsoft (Netflix compatible Xbox 360) allow Netflix to expand their subscription base and Netflix compatible streaming devices. Profit sharing schemes with studios allow Netflix to acquire exclusive distribution rights. Both new partnerships and profit sharing schemes should be sought to increase Netflix’s subscription base, profits, and establish themselves as the frontrunner in providing digital home entertainment.
Companies like Netflix that have been in the movie streaming industry for many years, and have a large portion of the market for streaming movies make it difficult to others to enter into the online movie rental industry. Netflix has already established a large library of movies and TV shows available for its members. It would take Redbox a number of years and resources in order to catch up with the infrastructure that Netflix already has available and ready for the consumer right now. Redbox would need to analize the opportunity cost of going into a new market or staying and investing in the current kiosks market and making sure that it is the best it can be. Redbox may be subject to others entering into the kiosks market to tap in on a low cost profitable business model. Blockbuster announced the intentions of entering into the kiosks market, which would have taken some of Redbox's share of the profits in a small percentage. However, in 2012 Redbox purchased Blockbuster kiosks business. According to LA times:
Cineplex Inc. is a Canadian Film Exhibitor company that operates only in Canada for the time being. It operates in the Entertainment industry, and pretty much has a monopoly over the movie theatre and film exhibition sector in most parts of Canada. However, the current data in Canada suggests that Video-On-Demand (VOD) popularity is experiencing a rather rapid increase, followed by an increase in sector’s development and revenue all around. Nowadays, all of the major Canadian broadcasting companies -- such as Rogers -- offer some sort of VOD service to their customers.2 Therefore, the net attendance of movie theatres, Cineplex Inc. in particular, inevitably go through a yearly drop. On the other hand, the industry is constantly growing and attempting to overcome its obstacles by introducing new features and services. Therefore, the profitability of the industry is constantly sustained.
In the field of low-cost and globally-ambitious Internet subscription services, there are mainly four big competitors, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and HBO. In order to win as much of consumers’ time and spending as possible, each of them have different strategies to compete with each other. HBO is an original content firm getting into the Internet subscription business with HBO Go (Moskowitz, 2015). Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon are internet firms with mostly licensed content, all planning their strategy of producing original content.
The average Blockbuster store carries roughly 1,500 movie titles. Netflix carries more than 12,000 titles. It has movies that you can't find anywhere else. And Netflix uses collaborative filtering technology to send you emails that alert you to movies that you might otherwise never consider. Netflix saw the video- and game-rental market moving to DVD and built its business around that trend. Netflix doesn't rent videocassettes, only DVDs (in part because they're lighter and cheaper to mail). Netflix was able to identify and implement a strategy fo...
§ There are a large number of substitute products. Netflix is in the business of providing personal entertainment at an affordable cost. Since any other form of entertainment is considered a substitute, Netflix?s industry is in direct competition with all other forms of entertainment, whether it be reading, physical exercise, regular television, etc. If trends in popular culture move away from those related to movies, revenues may be affected.
Companies like Amazon and Netflix are very effective in predicting what customers normally buy and watch. Knowing what your customers are or are not buying will allow you to position products that they are statistically likely to purchase based on recent transactions and activity. This is a powerful tool for Netflix because it keeps users engaged and actively using the service but also allows them to tailor their investments in content towards items that are more likely to keep users active on their site.
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 strategic focus has allowed Netflix to grow into the largest online entertainment subscriptions service in the United States with over 6.3 million subscribers (Netflix).
Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix headquartered in Los Gatos, CA, began the company’s operations in 1997 after receiving an enormous late charge from a movie rental he returned long overdue. However, Hastings had the desire to be different than traditional movie outlets; whereas, customers had to drive to the location, pay a certain amount for each movie they rented, and were given a deadline in which to return the movie. Instead of using a method established by other video markets “to attract customers to a retail location, Netflix offered home delivery of DVDs through the mail” which eventually led to a booming business towards streaming forms of entertainment (Shih, Kaufman, & Spinola, 2009, p. 3). Today, Netflix exists along with several competitors; however, offers the most streaming content available for viewing, and continues to grow its subscriber base both domestically and globally. Although, direct and indirect competitors, acquisition costs, and several barriers present a financial threat for Netflix, the company has managed to grow with the acclamation of partnerships, expand to international territories, and vastly increase its price in shares of stock.
In this paper, I would like to analyze Netflix’s distinctive strategies based on their competitive advantage and how it covers from its strategy mistakes in the high threat industry as well as give some viable suggestion for the future development of the company.
The idea inspired Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, and then they founded Netflix in Scotts Valley, California in 1997 (Netflix, 2014). The company comes into play by developing a subscription-based streaming platform for movies and television shows. Unlike the traditional movie rental businesses such as Blockbuster and Redbox, Netflix’s innovation offers service via Internet, and it does not have any physical stores but instead delivers DVDs through postal mail in the U.S. Since then, Netflix has become the world’s leading internet television network with constant growth of customers to over 48 millions members in more than 40 countries in the North America, Europe, and the Latin America (Netflix, 2014). In this analysis, the main focus is examining the current market environment for Netflix. It identifies the type of market structure that Netflix is currently competing. The analysis also expands on the competitions, product differentiation, pricing strategy, and measuring the level of easy entry-and-exit.
As advance technology of fiber-optic developed and is on the rise, everyday there is another story about entertaining movies on demand and streaming online is with ease. Those developments which let movie’s viewers sit in the comfort of their home or anywhere with access to the internet can stream instance movies with a push of a bottom. They no longer need to make a trip to the movie’s stores for movies rental and return, so that is why movie shops fail and filed for bankruptcy bring a symbolic close to the “let’s go rent a movie” era. Blockbuster LLC, formerly Blockbuster Entertainment Inc., both owned and franchised American-based giant provider of home movie and video game rental services through video rental stores, later adding movies by mail, streaming online and video on demand. Due to the peak of fiber-optic and competition from companies such as Netflix, Redbox, and GameFly, Blockbuster became the victim of digital media and filed for bankruptcy on September 23, 2010 due to significant lost in revenue.[3]
As the firm moves forward, top managers must pay attention to staying unique to sustain a competitive advantage. Netflix does not own their content, nor do they have any tangible assets. Netflix is a part of a broad range of network users. As technology continues to grow exponentially, Netflix will have to be readily adaptive to change and innovation. Technology never stops growing and evolving, therefore, Netflix’s business platform should never stop growing and evolving. At the same time, they must be careful to remain user friendly and customer centric by keeping the technology at a level where users will not have to obtain a certain set of technological skill sets.
Netflix was established by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings in 1997 in California. Initially, the company offered a DVD-by-mail service for a monthly, flat rate subscription fee. Videos were sen...
In this paper I have analyzed the past and present condition of Blockbuster. Given the right circumstances and execution, Blockbuster can once again return to the video rental powerhouse status they enjoyed throughout the 1990s.
There is strong competition with other companies that offer video streaming at no extra charge. Additionally, Netflix and its competitors are attempting to enter the digital world. Digitally offering television shows is an area of competition that has previously been controlled by