Netflix: An In-Depth Study of their Proactive & Adaptive …

1 IRA International Journal of Management & Social Sciences ISSN 2455-2267; , Issue 02 (August 2017). Pg. no. 152-161. Institute of Research Advances netflix : An In-Depth Study of their Proactive & Adaptive Strategies to Drive Growth and Deal with Issues of Net-Neutrality & Digital Equity Gautam Kumar Mandal1#, Fabio Diroma2, Prof Rekha Jain3. 1. PGP-2 Student IIM Ahmedabad, India. 2. MSc Bocconi University, Italy. 3. Professor- Computers and Information Systems Group, IIM Ahmedabad, India. #. corresponding author. Type of Review: Peer Reviewed. DOI: How to cite this paper: Mandal, G., Diroma, F., Jain, R. (2017). netflix : An In-Depth Study of their Proactive & Adaptive Strategies to Drive Growth and Deal with Issues of Net-Neutrality & Digital Equity.

2 IRA-International Journal of Management & Social Sciences (ISSN 2455-2267), 8(2), 152-161. doi: Institute of Research Advances. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial International License subject to proper citation to the publication source of the work. Disclaimer: The scholarly papers as reviewed and published by the Institute of Research Advances (IRA) are the views and opinions of their respective authors and are not the views or opinions of the IRA. The IRA disclaims of any harm or loss caused due to the published content to any party. Institute of Research Advances is an institutional publisher member of Publishers Inter Linking Association Inc.

3 (PILA-CrossRef), USA. The institute is an institutional signatory to the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Hungary advocating the open access of scientific and scholarly knowledge. The Institute is a registered content provider under Open Access Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). The journal is indexed & included in WorldCat Discovery Service (USA), CrossRef Metadata Search (USA), WorldCat (USA), OCLC (USA), Open J-Gate (India), EZB (Germany) Scilit (Switzerland), Airiti (China), Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) of Bielefeld University, Germany, PKP Index of Simon Fraser University, Canada. 152. IRA-International Journal of Management & Social Sciences ABSTRACT.

4 netflix has been on the rise since its beginning in 1997, when one sees it from a distant perspective. However, a close analysis of its unique strategies shows that the company faced several small and big challenges in its growth journey, some of which, had the potential to throw the company away permanently from the market itself. Nevertheless, it responded tactically to all such issues, many of them being dealt in preventive and pro-active manner;. while other cases being dealt with quick reactions, essentially faster than any other competitors. This report is a Study of many such issues that the company faced, since its beginning till recently, when it almost conquered the whole world, after establishing its feet in China as well, in collaboration with the service provider Baidu.

5 The report also entails some unique strategies that the company followed while continuously and marginally changing its business model, which would seldom be possible in a brick-mortar economy. As such, the company made use of its deeper understanding of how markets react in an internet economy. Effort has been made to throw some light on the way the company has dealt the issues of digital discrimination allegations against it, and also its stance on net neutrality. Finally, some of the challenges and opportunities that the company has encountered recently, including the lawsuits has been touched upon, presenting the company's as well as outsider media's view on those, and has been concluded with potential problems and future aspects.

6 Keywords: Streaming media, video-on-demand, digital discrimination, net neutrality, Proactive strategies, netflix Methodology Used & Source of Data: Secondary research (literature, articles, company official press notes, company public speeches & videos), Primary research (survey sent to 200 global participants, expert interviews), Annual Reports, Qualitative analysis frameworks for understanding intangible losses. netflix as an Entertainment Company netflix started as an entertainment company in the US and it specializes in providing streaming media and video-on-demand online and DVD by mail. But has its growth means and rate been like any other so-called disruptive firm?

7 Certainly not. As per the company reports of July 2017, netflix currently million subscribers worldwide, including million in the United States itself.[1] However, it is worth mentioning that the company never had a single point mantra for its growth. The growth of netflix with respect to its prime business model & the method of customer acquisition has varied substantially over the time period from 1997 to 2017. It has been a highly agile and pro-active company not only in its growth front, but also in dealing with the criticism it has faced time to time. netflix was founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph on August, 1997, in Scotts Valley, California. Currently, it has its headquarters in Los Gatos, California.

8 The core business has been media streaming and on- demand videos, but, in 2013, netflix ventured into television and film production, along with online distribution. [2]. Brief Summary of netflix 's business model& its expansion: The initial business model included DVD sales and rental, although Hastings jettisoned DVD sales about a year after netflix 's founding to focus on the DVD. rental by mail business . ([3] Keating, Gina, 2012 Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America's Eyeballs New York: Penguin. p. 47.). Thenceforth, in parallel with its consolidated rental service of Blu-ray and DVD, the company expanded its spectrum of business areas introducing media streaming, Next step followed was expanding internationally; with streaming made available to Canada in 2010 (" netflix launches Canadian movie service".)

9 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Report 2011[4]). It continued growing its streaming service to other countries and by January 2016, netflix services operated in over 190 countries (Wall Street Journal, " netflix Expands to 190 Countries", Amol Sharma, EzequeilMinaya[5]). In the table below, we have chronologically summarised the international expansion of netflix , which has a user interface of over 20 languages now. It has been built from data collected from CBS Interactive Report, 2016, netflix goes live in 130 new countries and few other sources for individual countries [6].Please see the table next page. 153. IRA-International Journal of Management & Social Sciences 2007 netflix starts its online streaming operation in the US.

10 2010 netflix start its expansion abroad, by taking off broadcasting operation in in Canada 2011 The service is expanded in the Latin American and Caribbean Island market 2012 netflix service lands over the sea, January 4 its time for the English speaking market of United Kingdom and Ireland. In September of the same here, the Scandinavian countries are targeted 2013 The company gradually slows down expansion due to raising costs. The only new country where it becomes available is The Netherlands 2014 netflix is in France, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. 2015 netflix pushes its operations worldwide, by adding to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.