Aspects of Design Thinking Paper or Presentation

Aspects of Design Thinking Paper or Presentation

MGT/411

Aspects of Design Thinking Paper or Presentation

In 1997 Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings created a company called “netflix”, the business model was meant to take advantages or two emerging technologies, DVDs and Websites. Over the next 20 years they would revolutionize the way we consume media and change the business model for TV and movie sales. In 2007 They decided to switch their business in a bold move from DVD rentals in the mail to a digital streaming service, this change in the thinking process of the business is seen by many as the turning point in leading to DVD’s becoming dated technology. Within ten years after that the company would grow from an income of 66 million to a income of 1.8 billion in 2017. What has made Netflix so successful is the large scale productions they put on in house with House of Cards, Orange is the new black and many of the Marvel themed shows that Netflix owns and has won many awards with. Streaming sites like Hulu that came after just can’t compete with the large array of movies and shows that Netflix puts forth to subscribers. After two decades of being in the market, Netflix has constantly made sure they were at the tip of the spear in terms of innovating and creating new business models and its allowed to to flourish and grow in other areas that Blockbuster and Hulu cant.

The history of this organization has demonstrated the five key elements of design thinking, when relating Netflix to Blockbuster, one has to acknowledge Blockbusters failure with poor leadership and innovation. Netflix was much more creative with trying to innovate new sales paths, where as blockbuster kept the brick and mortar stores running for 18 years before thinking about online use. They had never planned on trying to change and innovate their business model, Netflix emergence didn’t make Hollywood video or Blockbuster change until they started to see in 2003/2004 that Netflix was starting to gain traction. Netflix by that time had started to see that people were wanting other options for media and were wanting to stop consuming media on DVD’s and start using portable options. That put them ahead of other competition in the space just on their ability to try and understand how to grow. Netflix excelled at knowing they market, knowing the customers and the owners having a previous history in software, knew what they could bring to the table that would help them. Bringing the streaming service on line meant a reduction in capital, lowered costs due to shipping and lower prices for customer memberships.

Innovation sometimes means change, change is rarely viewed as a positive in organizations just because people are resistant to change. Where Netflix needs to change is in their ability to collaborate with others, Netflix lost the Disney contract two years ago and most of the popular shows and movies that Disney has been putting out with Avengers and Daredevil are no longer going to be on the platform. Disney started its own streaming service in competition with Netflix, this has created a rift in consumers as people don’t want to pay for several streaming site and will pick one over the other. That means that a new streaming site like Disney+ will reduce netflix memberships as people will move to the new site and may come back or they may not. If Netflix had tried to partner with Disney and build value in the fact that they already have a proven platform and already have a financial partnership that benefits both parties, they might have been able to add more revenue and add the Disney library to further grow memberships.

In my recommendation I believe that netflix needs to reach out to sporting events and other TV stations like history channel and Discovery to crate strategic partnerships that air old sporting events or stream new ones as they happen. Discovery and History can create programming like shark week to air on Netflix for people to watch over and over that will create much more traffic to those channels. Netflix needs to diversify its space and branch out to TV in order to drive more viewers to the content it has, owning great TV shows is good, but driving more viewers to the shows and producing shows for regular TV and airing the seasons on netflix will drive more viewers. In the end Netflix has to attract more viewers and could learn from Hulu in that they want TV show seasons on their site and they want theirs on cable stations.

Conclusion

Netflix upon conception has been about innovation and creating something thats never been around before. This has allowed them to sustain nearly 25 years of growth, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t areas they can improve. The steps I laid forth on getting some Netflix original series on cable TV and vice versa with stations like History and or Discovery will allow new viewers or people that don’t view Netflix the same as cable the chance to join and see how great it is. The next leap of innovation can put netflix even higher in the next 25 years.

References

Leger, H. S. (2019, November 14). Disney Plus vs Netflix: who will win? Retrieved from https://www.techradar.com/news/disney-plus-vs-netflix-who-will-win

Murphy, C. (2019, December 20). Netflix lost over one million subscribers to Disney Plus, analyst says. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/12/20/disney-plus-netflix-lost-over-1-m-subscribers-analyst-says/2708831001/

Satell, G. (2014, September 21). A Look Back At Why Blockbuster Really Failed And Why It Didn’t Have To. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/09/05/a-look-back-at-why-blockbuster-really-failed-and-why-it-didnt-have-to/#1d0f97711d64

References