Wenbiao Hua
Manduhai
Likith Srinivasa Pamarthy
Siraporn Vudhisethakrit
Company Description:
Type: Public
On the web: http://www.netflix.com/
Employees: 2,670
Employee growth: 105.4%
Netflix is the world's largest online movie rental service. It has over 10 million subscribers. Netflix members can get DVDs delivered to their homes without paying for the shipping fee. Netflix has over 100,000 DVD titles. It does not charge for any due dates. About 97 percent of the subscribers will receive the DVD in one business day by first class mail with a postage-paid return envelope from 58 distribution centers.
Challenges:
Netflix applied a new technology called Silverlight is now available for Macs owners that have Intel processors to instantly watch movies. However, Netflix is facing a challenge of an application of Mac platform. It is mainly due to the rights management. Netflix fulfills its obligations to the movies owners by choosing Silverlight because it comes with technology that encrypts the content on the way to the consumer called “Play Ready,”so that it’s protected.Strategic Advantages Provided by IT:
In a blend of technologies from multiple eras, Netflix steers couch potatoes away from the video store and straight to the mailbox. Its Web site (Netflix.com) offers DVD rentals (100,000-plus titles) to more than 10 million subscribers for a monthly fee. The movies are delivered to customers the old-fashioned way: through the US Postal Service. Netflix does not charge late fees or have due dates, and the company's service employs user ratings to predict individual preferences and make movie recommendations. Netflix has a network of distribution centers in major US cities. An agreement with TiVo allows TiVo customers with its latest DVR models to tap an online Netflix library of some 12,000 movies and TV shows.For future development of IT :
Netflix is planning to change the streaming client platform into Blue-Ray players. They are expecting to add streaming technology, which plays movies directly into a consumer’s digital television when there is the termination of analog broadcasting. It is provided with an Ethernet jack or better, a Wi-Fi connection, that’s able to talk directly to the internet. They expect to continue to grow physical shipping operations with a new technology and to spend a lot of energy optimizing. They have to upgrade “Play ready,” which is technology that encrypts the content on the way to the consumer, so that it is protected. They are trying on a software, which is sophisticated statistical prediction models that’s looking at DVDs and deciding what to do very firstly.
Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2008:
Sales: $1,364.7M
One year growth: 13.2%
Net income: $83.0M
Income growth: 24.0%
