Netflix's Chances Remain Higher Than Ever After Rate Hike
By James McQuivy for PaidContent.org
All through the past decade, observers in industry and on Wall Street have had a handful of reasons to discount Netflix’s efforts. First, they claimed that Netflix could not beat Blockbuster’s entrenched retail presence. Wrong. Then they felt that Netflix could never attract people to its scant digital video offerings. Wrong again. Now they’re claiming that Netflix won’t survive its final transition to dominant digital video subscription provider, a transition that required raising the rent on DVD renters to fund digital content acquisition.
When will these people ever learn? We understand the psychology of cheering against a disruptive player like Netflix — it sure would be nice if we could just pretend all these digital disruptions will simply go away. But they won’t, and neither will Netflix. Because the company:
» Serves consumers’ needs conveniently. No digital company is better than Netflix at making it easy to access its offerings. The interface is elegant; content is easy to discover and consume. In a world where consumers have much more complex options for viewing video content, Netflix stands out as a bright, shiny star in the dark expanse of relative inconvenience.
» Makes embedding Netflix very attractive to device makers. Partners like Samsung, LG Electronics, and Microsoft recognized as early as three years ago that the key to selling their devices and encouraging their regular use was to add Netflix. So attractive has this option been that Apple essentially conceded the failure of its iTunes video service to go mainstream by adding Netflix to the Apple TV last year, a very uncharacteristic move for the company and evidence that Netflix is a consumer proposition you must embrace
» Maintains a sticky, digital customer relationship. Netflix’s stickiness comes from its dependence on digital tools to acquire, satisfy, and retain customers. The company’s digital advantage in customer support has resulted in continuously declining costs of customer acquisition that a cable company would die for.
» Manages its economics by shifting to digital in every aspect of its business. Netflix continually looks for ways to shift costs from analog or manual processes to digital ones. This is true in the way the company manages its customer relationship, but it’s also true in the way it processes DVDs in fulfillment centers. Netflix’s dependence on digital throughout its entire business is one of the least-talked-about strategic advantages the company has built for itself.
That’s not to say that Netflix will walk a primrose path to ultimate victory. It has accumulated several enemies that want to see the company fail. And it depends on many new partners for critical pieces of its business success, including content producers, broadband ISPs, and the same device makers that relied on Netflix to sell their latest gadgets. All of these partners want to find a way to either restrict Netflix’s access to – or get more money for – the value they provide.
This is an excerpt from an article on PaidContent.org. Click here for the full article.
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