Research Outline

Netflix

Goals

To provide 2-3 insights into how Netflix has achieved success with its global expansion.

Early Findings

Innovation

  • Netflix is known for its innovation. The Netflix culture prioritizes creating "new ideas that prove useful” and re-conceptualizing issues to discover solutions to hard problems.”
  • The company also constantly tests its innovative power. It believes that "experimenting is crucial to innovate and to stay viable as a company."
  • According to the company's chief talent officer, Patty McCord, they "evolved a new way of working through incremental adaptation: trying new things, making mistakes, beginning again, and seeing good results.”
  • Some of the company's earliest innovation was shipping DVDs via mail when the company was still a DVD rental company, introducing "streaming movies and TV shows digitally," and "producing its original content."
  • Netflix caused a major industry disruption in 2016 when they decided to release a "show’s entire season online at once," causing people to "binge-watch."


Personalization

  • Netflix realized early that it had a vast audience and as such, tried to cater to each consumer's needs based on their preferences. The company's first attempt at personalization was "a personalized movie recommendation system, which used Netflix members’ ratings to accurately predict choices for all members."
  • The company currently uses "analytics." They are a data-driven company extracting not only insights for views but also for making investments, especially for Netflix's original creations. Netflix uses analytics to optimize its marketing and deliver better products to consumers.


Adapt and Adopt

  • Netflix's founders "were courageous enough to steer the ship in a different direction than the industry," including making a sharp turn towards technology and new advancements. Their strategy has always been to "adapt and adopt."
  • The company realized early "the significance of technology trends sensing a switch in the consumer demands." They are quick to adopt "transformation without any delays," in fact, "using every technology up-gradation without a delay has played a big part in Netflix success."
  • The company has vast amounts of data "on the viewing habits of its 125 million subscribers, from which movies and TV shows they liked or disliked to how long they watched an individual episode or how much they binged a new series." The results of this data was "a rich social system that influences the movies and shows members see."