Essay about Netflix Strategic Analysis

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,

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?

Blockbuster implemented a new strategy for customers to access their rentals in “five channels of distribution: in-store, by mail, through vending machines and kiosks, online, and at home (direct to the TV)” (DATAMONITOR, 2009). However, this strategy was a reactive approach to the problem produced ten years behind schedule. Wooldridge et al., (2007) stated that Blockbuster should select and adapt their strategy to respond to the fast changing market and maintain a competitive position. This was an obvious failure for Blockbuster. The changes in the market produced a decline in profit at a faster pace than the strategies that Blockbuster implemented to combat these losses.

It appears that Netflix has control over the vast majority of the movie rental business. Consumers are renting less than they used to and the convenience that Netflix incorporates into its service, such as online streaming and mail orders eliminates other competitors from considering entering the movie rental business.

The CineMatch software also allows Netflix to maximize their library utilization. Increasing the demand for older or smaller market movies not only assists Netflix in better meeting subscriber demand but also decreases the payout of revenue sharing that often accompanies the most popular new releases. Netflix has revenue sharing contracts with most of the major movie studios. Under the agreements the firm pays a percentage of the subscription fees for a predetermined period of time in exchange for receiving the most popular titles at a considerably discount over the whole sale price (Netflix SEC).

The purpose of this paper is to help provide microeconomic analysis of Netflix Company to give an insight of the business market in which it operates. Ever want to rent a DVD and not have to worry about the return date, or stream a favorite TV show on the go? Now that dream is a reality thanks to Netflix allows people to rent DVD and Blu-ray without having to worry about the late fee or due dates. Along with the rental services, customers can stream movies or TV shows online anytime, anywhere all without commercials interruptions.

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.

But while collective competitive pressures are fairly strong and likely to intensify, they are now not so strong as to prevent many movie rental companies—especially Netflix—from being profitable. Up to this point, the movie rental companies (with the exception of Blockbuster and Movie Gallery) have able to cope with rivalry, the bargaining power of the movie studios, and the competitive pressures from substitutes. It would not, however, come as a shock if the bargaining power of the movie studios begins to squeeze the profitability of VOD/Internet streaming providers as they demand bigger fees in return for granting streaming access to the libraries of movie titles.

Netflix offers their members more than 55,000 DVD title selections. This is more than any other online rental service in the United States. In 2005, Netflix shipped more than 1 million DVDs a day. Its inventory was approximately 20 million DVDs, and Netflix spent $84.2 million acquiring new DVDs. As of September 30, 2005, the company's balance sheet showed its DVD holdings at a net value of $52.7 million after depreciation (Maddox &

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.

One of the distinguishing factors between Netflix Inc. and other video rental companies is their decision to bypass the traditional “brick and mortar” retail route and delivering their product from the warehouse directly to the customer. Netflix learned that they could cut cost by utilizing the internet for

Netflix Inc. is in the entertainment market, which is a part of a larger video, film

When, we also discuss concerning the existence, Netflix has over 50 million subscribers from across the globe, with 30 million of them from domestic partnerships and marketplaces.

A strategy is a plan that is targeted over the long run. Business level strategies refers to strategic alternatives that an organization chooses from as it conducts business in a particular industry or market (Griffin,2002). A corporate level strategy means that a company manages its operations simultaneously across many industries and markets. Netflix operates across both a business and corporate level strategy. The main areas across which Netflix operate on in their corporate level are business portfolio and partnerships.