Csallo Rebeka
Csallo Rebeka
Csallo Rebeka
International Business
2021
Rebeka Csalló
VALUE PROPOSITION AT
NETFLIX
BACHELOR’S THESIS | ABSTRACT
International Business
Rebeka Csalló
The thesis is a case study about Netflix and its position in the streaming industry. The goal is to
introduce Netflix as a company and analyse whether Netflix could be considered as a forerunner
on the global market. Lastly the goal is to receive opinions from customer and assess Netflix’s
value proposition on the Hungarian market.
The methods used are theoretical research and a survey sent out to different social media
platforms. Theoretical research is used to introduce Netflix as a company and its company culture
and also to compare Netflix to its competitors on the global level. The survey is used to get insight
to the value proposition to the Hungarian users. Based on the survey answers and author’s own
knowledge finally a value proposition canvas was created about Netflix.
From the theoretical research it is clear that on a global level Netflix still could be considered as
a forerunner, the company’s main advantage is the offered and produced wide range of movies.
From the survey the result is that the surveyed Hungarian users prefer Netflix. Survey participants
mentioned the technological aspects when they were asked what they like about Netflix. However,
when they were asked about what could Netflix improve in the services, the most common answer
was the range of movies available on the platform, which is a contradiction to the results on a
global level.
To conclude, Netflix has been still growing significantly in 2020, and they are proposing values
both on the global and the Hungarian market.
KEYWORDS:
netflix, value proposition, platform, ict, movie, streaming, value proposition canvas
CONTENT
1 INTRODUCTION 6
2 NETFLIX 7
2.1 History of the company 7
2.2 Streaming and on-demand services 7
2.3 Netflix as a platform 8
2.4 Stakeholders 9
2.4.1 Shareholders 9
2.4.2 Users 9
2.4.3 Movie production companies 10
2.4.4 ISP, payment processing services, TV channel providers 10
2.4.5 Employees 11
2.4.6 Directors and management 12
2.4.7 Employee resource groups / trade unions / national regulatory bodies 12
2.5 Company Culture 12
2.6 Culture according to management 13
2.7 Culture according to employees 14
2.8 Netflix in 2020 15
3 VALUE PROPOSITION 17
3.1 Did Netflix pursue a Blue Ocean strategy? 17
3.2 Netflix’s competitors 18
3.2.1 Disney+ 18
3.2.2 HBO Go & Max & Now 19
3.2.3 Hulu 19
3.2.4 Amazon Prime Video 20
3.2.5 Youtube TV 20
3.2.6 Others 21
3.3 Share of the industry 21
3.4 Value proposition 22
3.4.1 Pricing 22
3.4.2 Content 24
3.4.3 Availability (offline, devices) 24
3.4.4 Employee satisfaction 25
3.5 Conclusion 26
5 CONCLUSION 38
REFERENCES 39
APPENDICES
FIGURES
PICTURES
Picture 1: Eliminate – Reduce – Raise – Create grid in the initial stage (Blackfiskers,
2020) 17
Picture 2: Customer Profile visualized. Template from www.strategyzer.com 36
Picture 3: Value Map of Netflix visualized. Template from www.strategyzer.com 37
TABLES
HD – High Definition
1 INTRODUCTION
Netflix and streaming platforms are a popular topic nowadays, there has been several of
theses and papers written about them. One good example is that the Harvard Business
Journal has made several case studies about them (McCord, 2014.) Netflix is a popular
example in the Machine Learning topic as well, as Netflix has a famous recommendation
algorithm. (Kasula, 2020.) However, Netflix is an advanced company in every aspect,
therefore they are worth to analyze furthermore.
In this thesis Netflix is analyzed from the aspect of value proposition. Netflix is analysed
in the global market compared to its competitors, it is being assessed whether Netflix
can be considered a forerunner company in the global streaming industry. Value
proposed to Netflix’s hungarian users is analyzed with a questionnaire. Based on the
questionnaire answers the Value Proposition Canvas was created in the last chapter.
- If Netflix started at a Blue Ocean, are they still a forerunner on the market?
These research questions are in these order answered in the thesis. The second chapter
introduces Netflix as a company, how the company has been affected by the COVID
pandemic and Netflix’s company culture.
The third chapter gives an overview to Netflix and its biggest competitors and they are
analyzed from different aspects. The goal in this chapter is to analyze Netflix pros and
cons compared to its competitors and determine whether Netflix can be considered a
forerunner in the global market.
The last chapter processes the questionnaire, which was sent out to different social
platforms. The questionnaire was answered mainly be young adult (college student)
women, therefore the chapter analyzes Netflix’s value proposition to this special target
group and lastly based on the given answers Netflix’s Value Proposition Canvas has
been created.
2 NETFLIX
As Netflix states on their official website (Netflix, 2021), they are a subscription-based
streaming service company and Netflix’s uniqueness is that the users can watch TV
shows and movies without commercials on an internet-connected device from anywhere
anytime.
The company was created in 1997, Netflix started by mailing out rented DVDs and the
website finally launched in the next year. In 1999, the membership subscription
opportunity started. In 2000 the personalized movie recommendation system was
already available and in 2002 Netflix was listed in the NASDAQ. (Netflix.com, 2020)
Netflix’s website with the possibility to stream the movies was introduced in 2007, ten
years after the company’s official launch. The first Netflix owned productions appeared
in the streaming services in 2013, for example with the well known series “House of
Cards”. In 2016 Netflix have expanded with 130 new countries, meaning that the
services became available in 190 countries. This was the year, when Netflix have
entered the Hungarian market as well. In 2017 they have reached the 100 million
subscribers. (Netflix.com, n.d.)
Streaming video is a term applied to the compression and and buffering techniques that
allow one to transmit and view video in real-time through the Internet, and also streaming
means that instead of having to wait to download a media, a video can start as soon as
it has started to download, and while playing it is still being downloaded from the server.
(AboutVideoEditing, n.d.)
VoD (Video on Demand) dedicates a single channel to each user and enables the video
to be started at any time with controls, for example the video can be paused, rewinded
or fast-forwarded. (Thouin & Coates, 2007)
Netflix is offering their services as streaming the video content online (from different
devices) and to download them on devices for later use. Netflix offers movies in different
qualities (Standard definition, HD and UHD). Besides streaming the user can create a
list called ”My list” on the site, where users can add the movies, they want to watch later
on. Users can rate movies with ”thumbs up” or ”thumbs down”, and the algorithm will
adjust its recommendations on the site.
Netflix has 3 different pricing plans available for its users. The first is the Basic one, which
enables one user to use the service and it will not be streaming in HD quality.
The second plan is called the Standard, which enables two users to watch Netflix at the
same time, and their streaming will be in HD quality.
The most expensive plan is called the Premium, which enables 4 users to use their
service at the same time and the video streaming will be made in UHD quality.
Netflix’s pricing plans will be covered later on with more details when compared with the
competitors.
Netflix functions as a platform, which is a usual business model for internet based
companies. Platforms are usually working as a marketplace. Platforms are usually
websites or applications where different user groups are interacting with each other and
exchange services or products. One example is eBay where the two groups connected
by the site are the buyers and sellers and the sellers offer products. This also describes
Netflix, Netflix owns a platform (the website) where Netflix is managing the content
offered by movie production companies and offering them to customers – the viewers.
Platforms, such as Netflix tend to have a rapid growth (Anon., 2016.) Usually, platforms
are connecting two different user groups and as more users a platform has from one
user group, it will attract more users from the other user group. For example at eBay the
user groups can be identified as the buyers and sellers. The initial start of a platform
service is the difficult part, to get the users to start using the service. The user groups at
Netflix are the subscribers/viewers and the movie production companies. Viewers will
registrate for the movies and series, and movie companies will produce content for the
viewers it has an initial starting dilemma. At first potential customers will not registrate if
there is not enough content for them to be worth paying for the service and movie
production companies will not making exclusive content for a platform if there is not
enough users for them to be worth producing that movie.
All of Netflix’s competitors are using the platform business model as well.
2.4 Stakeholders
Every company’s operation is a combination of the interests of the different parties that
have a stake in the company’s operations. Different parties have different interests, some
of them are concerned about the company’s well being, others could be worried in a
company’s impact (for example unions or civil organizations are protecting other being
harmed from a company’s operations). In this subchapter the main stakeholders are
introduced and analyzed in order to get a more thorough picture about Netflix.
2.4.1 Shareholders
A shareholder can be a person or another company, or fund etc. that legally owns one
or more shares of the share capital of a company, they are also referred as a ”member
of a corporation”. (Fontinelle, 2003)
The shareholders are concerned about Netflix’s financial performance, they want it to be
profitable and to grow its revenues. Shareholders are having shares and if the company
does well, their shares can be sold at a higher price, thus they can make profit from the
company. Shareholders are one of the most important groups for a company, because
they have the power to even bankrupt a company (Hayes, 2021.)
2.4.2 Users
Users are the ones who are actively using Netflix’s services and they are the ones Netflix
is most concerned about. If the users are not liking the service and if the users have a
high churn rate, that is always a red flag for a company. Churn rate is measuring the rate
how many customers are stop doing business with a corporation. When it is a high rate
it means that the company has to do extra steps in order to gain new customers and
even more to grow its customer base, therefore every company strive to keep its already
paying users (Frankenfield, 2021.)
However Netflix has currently an important issue with some of its users. Many of them
are sharing their passwords with some of their friends and thus Netflix is losing a
tremendous amount of money on people who could be customers. One estimate says
that alone in 2019 they have lost $9.1 Billion on revenues because of this phenomal.
(Wespin, 2020) Also it is worth to mention that users are on the receiving end in the
platform business model, where the other players are Netflix itself and the movie
production companies.
Movie production companies are the ones who make content available on the streaming
platform. There are different kind of production corporates when it comes to Netflix.
Netflix is making its own content but also buying the licenses for other movies and series.
Netflix has been licensing and outsourcing the movie production and then purchasing
the rights and selling the movies as a Netflix production, but they are shifting towards in-
house producing, which saves them money compared to licensing the content (Levy,
2018.) At the end of 2019 Netflix had put $24.5 Billion to its content licensing, interesting
is that Netflix is using data mining for determining the total cost of each licensing
agreement (Beers, 2020.)
Internet service providers (ISPs) are companies providing internet access to users,
providing the infrastructure for users to reach Netflix’s services. It is highly depending on
the ISPs that what quality the customer will get, whether they can watch movies in HD.
There is a relatively new concept called network neutrality which means that now every
ISP has to treat all internet communications equally and not to make big corporations a
”VIP” service provider. Without net neutrality ISPs were prioritizing some sites in
exchange for money, now that is not possible. (Easley, et al., 2016)
TV channel providers are the different parties that are helping potential customers reach
Netflix, providing access to the Netflix application through their set-top boxes. Microsoft
(Xbox), Google (Google Play), Apple (iStore), Sony (PlayStation) are offering Netflix as
an application on their own platforms and devices.
2.4.5 Employees
Employees are a crucial point for every company, their well-being should be high priority
for every firm.
As of 2020 Netflix had 9400 employees worldwide, which has increased since 2015
every year. In the Figure 1 it can be seen how Netflix has expanded in the 2015-2020
timeline.
In the company culture section,the company culture and employee satisfaction at Netflix
is further analysed.
Directors and the board or also called management are responsible for the most
important decisions in a company’s life. The board is interested in making profit as the
members are usually having a bigger amount of shares of the company as well. However
their preferences and employees can differ, as the lesser the salaries the more the profit.
According to Netflix’s website the leadership is currently 23 people, and the directors
consist of 12 people, that meaning about 35 people is responsible for the strategic
decisions.
This stakeholder group is usually acting in behalf of a group of people, for example the
employee resource groups will be protecting employee’s rights. Netflix’s main conflict
was net neutrality mentioned earlier, for that the FCC (Federal Communications
Commission) in the USA is responsible. (Easley, et al., 2016)
”Corporate culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors that determine how a company’s
employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions” (Tarver,
2021.) In 2014 Netflix executives wrote a deck about their company culture and the
important values for the company, in this chapter it will be introduced. That document is
from the point of view of Netflix’s management, therefore in this subchapter some
statements from the employees or former employees are introduced as well. (McCord,
2014)
In my opinion company culture can be a huge added value to a firm, hence this chapter.
When Netflix is offering a better culture than its competitors it will mean that Netflix will
be already offering something extra.
In the beginning the presentation, Netflix is stating that almost every company has
”Integrity, Communication, Respect and Excellence” painted on their walls and displayed
as core values, but for example Enron had those as well, whose leader went to jail.
Therefore they are stating that they are seeking real values, which are actively seeked
at the company. (McCord, 2014)
They are seeking nine behaviors and skills, which are the following:
Next they are stating that they try not to offer the corporate ”pseudo-benefits” like coffee
and lunches and parties, but they instead hire stunning colleagues and offering generous
severance package to adequate performance. Also they are stating that ”We’re a team,
not a family” – in contradict with a huge amount of job offerings nowadays. Besides that
they state that competing is rare among their team members for better positions and
better salaries. Their main goal according to them is to have high performance. (McCord,
2014) The latter from an outsider point of view could be a red flag about a lot of overtime.
The next point in the presentation is about employee freedom, their intended goal is to
increase their freedom rather than limit it. The presentation is implying that most of the
big companies start to limit their employees while growing. At Netflix they try to avoid this
consequence, therefore they try to minimize complexity growth as they are growing and
increasing talent density parallel. At Netflix they have only two rules when it comes to
freedom at work, prevening irrevocable disasters and intorelating moral issues. Netflix is
trying avoiding bad processes as well, such as too much bureaucracy for every decision.
One example they are bringing for this, is that they have avoided 9 am – 5 pm workdays,
and also they cleared their vacation policy and their clothing policy as well. (McCord,
2014)
In the next part Netflix is introducing their leadership method, which is to giving context
to employees and not control. They try to motivate through goals and strategies.
Their choice of teamwork is the so-called ”Highly aligned, loosely coupled” method,
which means that the strategy and the goals are clear and the team interactions are
focused on these. The loosely coupled part means that there are only minimal cross-
divisional meetings except just to set the goals, and groups are not waiting on each
others approval. (McCord, 2014)
In the sixth point Netflix is saying that they are paying top of the market, paying more to
employees than anyone else likely would, because as they are saying they want only
outstanding people working there. They are trying to avoid the salary issue with no fixed
budgets set every year, instead the managers are aligning their people to top of market
each year. Employees are also can decide how many Netflix stock options they want to
hold. Besides that employees get $10k health benefit per year and they can decide what
to do with that, they can instead keep that money or use it for health insurance. (McCord,
2014)
In their last point they are speaking about promotions and development by the company.
Two necessary conditions are for a promotion at Netflix, the job has to be big enough
and the candidate should be a ”superstar” in the current role. Also they are trying to
develop their employees with good colleagues and challenging work and they try to avoid
formalized development such as rotating etc. (McCord, 2014)
All of the before mentioned points and goals at Netflix are sounding very promising, but
they are from the point of view of the managers. In this section of the paper employees
point of view is looked through.
Based on the aggregated reviews pro side what Netflix has stated is mainly true for the
company culture. From the con side my preconception about the long hours are seem to
be true, but Netflix have also stated this in their presentation that they are for high
performance.
Netflix publicly shares the shareholder letter for every business quarter. As of end of Q3
in 2020, Netflix’s financial situation was the following: Netflix have stated, that the first
half of the year held a record. On Figure 2 is noticable that since the lockdown started,
Netflix had a sizable growth. In Figure 2, it is visible, that since March, Netflix’s weekly
global net adds was record high, in their report Netflix have reached $5.768B revenue at
the end of Q1, which is estimately 27.58% increase since 2019. (Netflix.com, 2020)
3 VALUE PROPOSITION
As one of the research questions is whether Netflix was a Blue Ocean company this
subchapter is focusing on that topic.
Blue Ocean is a term created by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne in their book Blue
Ocean Strategy. Blue oceans are all the industries not in existence today – the unknown
market space. They are unexplored and untained by competition, blue ocean is creating
new demand. A company which has Blue Ocean Strategy is creating uncontested market
space, making the competition irrelevant, creating new demand. (Kim & Mauborgne,
2021)
There are three characteristics of a good strategy, the first one being focus, a company
should put the efforts into certain directions. The company also has to distinguish itself
from the competitors and convincing the customers to choose them, and they also need
to have a compelling tagline. Netflix’s initial stage is being reviewed with the Eliminate –
Reduce – Raise – Create grid to see whether Netflix initially was having a Blue Ocean
Strategy. (Anon., 2020)
Picture 1: Eliminate – Reduce – Raise – Create grid in the initial stage (Anon., 2020)
Netflix has eliminated the stores where the DVDs could be bought, which compared to
the competitors was an important move. When moving to online Netflix had eliminated
the storage capacity needed for storing the DVDs, as all of their movies became available
online. Besides that the price of licences became lower than the cost of purchasing
DVDs. Netflix have also increased the comfort of watching movies, customers could
watch movies at home and eliminated the limits of watching movies as for the
subscription fee the customers could watch any number of movies. (Anon., 2020)
In conclusion Netflix was focusing on his own company and their initiate to offer movies
online was a Blue Ocean move. The next Blue Ocean move was when Netflix have
started to create their own movies and shows and competitors have been followed Netflix
since then. (Anon., 2020)
3.2.1 Disney+
Disney+ has launched its services in the United Stated, Canada and in the Netherlands
in 2019 november, it is a relatively new company, especially when compared to Netflix.
It is the own service of Disney.
Disney+ is growing rapidly. In 2021 March the company hit the 100 million subscriber
count and they are currently present in 59 countries. (Duffy, 2021)
Disney+ could grow this rapid because of its content, they have the Disney original
movies, the Pixar and Marvel contents, also Star Wars and National Geographic and
even some from 20th Century Fox productions. Besides these productions Disney+ have
promised more original contents in the next years. (Callaham, 2021a)
Disney original contents (and Marvel and Star Wars) can have an impact on a user to
switch to Disney+. Therefore I have looked to Netflix how much content can be found in
Netflix from the ones that Disney+ offers. For the ”Disney” term only 11 title is coming
up, but for Pixar and Marvel the list is bigger. Netflix still has some Marvel productions
made for them, but the newer ones will be exclusively available only on Disney+.
HBO Go is an older competitor, it was launched in 2010. The company has also released
a new platform called HBO Max and HBO Now in 2020, but as they are operated by the
same company, and at some countries only one of them is working, somewhere more of
them, this paper will look at them together.
HBO Now is only used in the United States, HBO Go and HBO Max are available for the
rest of the world. HBO has reached 37.7 million subscribers at the end of 2020, which is
a smaller number than Disney+, but HBO is also growing rapidly. One of HBO’s main hit
was last year the Wonder Woman 1984 movie, which holds probably the same value as
Marvel movies at Disney.
The content at HBO is consisting mainly of HBO own media, Warner Bros productions
and DC comics. (Callaham, 2021b.) Besides the available productions one strong point
for HBO is that anyone who is already subscribing for HBO at their television company
is able to access HBO’s streaming platforms . Also some telco is offering it as an extra
service, such as a built-in application the telco’s set-top boxes.
3.2.3 Hulu
Hulu is also an American streaming platform, majorly owned by Walt Disney Company
and Comcast, it have been founded in 2007.Currently there are 39 million subscribers to
Hulu, and it is available only in the US. However as Disney has launched its own
streaming platform Hulu’s future is somewhat questionable. (Curry, 2021)
Hulu was starting to create its own media in 2017. They have started with The
Handmaid’s Tale which became a hit, this way Hulu was able to rebrand itself as content
producers. Before their content was only an aggregation of old television shows and
movies. (Curry, 2021)
Hulu is not considered as the biggest competitor, as Hulu is way smaller than Netflix and
they are only US based, however Hulu is still a factor in streaming, as they provide
access to a lot of shows from the different US major networks and Hulu holds exclusive
right to FX’s original series.
Amazon Prime is the own streaming platform of Amazon. It was launched in 2006.
Amazon Prime Video has currently about 150 million subscribers and they are operating
worldwide, excluding China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria.
They have started to create original content in 2013. They have a broad list to choose
from they have got still a smaller quantity to choose from than Netflix.
Amazon Prime Video’s advantage is in that they are offering their content worldwide and
as Amazon is one of the biggest companies on the world, they will have the resources
to maybe get more rights and original contents than Netflix.
3.2.5 Youtube TV
Youtube TV is too new and has no original content to be considered as the biggest
competitor, but they have potential, and they have also produced some original content
to their Youtube Premium feature so far, therefore exclusive content probably will appear
at Youtube TV as well. Also if a user wants to have on demand and to watch TV, Youtube
TV can be a good alternative for them.
3.2.6 Others
There are other streaming platforms available, but lot of them are regional or very small
or new on the market. They could have the potential to later on to be bigger than Netflix,
but so far these streaming platforms are not considered to be the biggest competitors of
Netflix.
The below list is a short one about the other competitors of Netflix:
The subscriber count of every streaming platform has been introduced above, but here
they will be showed as share of the industry, with revenue and subscriber count.
Revenues are from the year 2020.
When the platforms are compared, Netflix is only the leading platform in subscriber
counts. Amazon Prime Video gathered slightly more revenue than Netflix, while having
significantly less subscribers. Disney+ has significantly less in revenues but gathering
subscriber count very fast. HBO and Hulu seem to be much smaller, and for YouTube
the company has not even shared the full 2020 numbers. As of these datas worldwide
Netflix seems to me as the leading streaming platform because of their subscriber count,
but considering that Disney+ only launched a year ago but gathered already almost 74
million subscribers, Netflix could be in danger financially.
Name of the streaming platform Revenue (in Subscriptions (in million people
million dollars)
Firstly some aspects are being analyzed that could have an important factor when it
comes to value creation, and after the value proposition canvas for Netflix is being
prepared in this subchapter.
3.4.1 Pricing
The pricing plans available are the ones available in the US, as it is easier to compare
them in USD values. All of the pricing information is from the companies own websites.
As it can be seen Netflix has three different plans, all the three of them is offering the
same service, but with standard it is possible to see the movies in HD quality, and in the
Premium plan in UHD quality.
At Disney+ the monthly fee is $7.99 USD, but there is a possibility to buy it as an annual
plan for the price of 10 month. Besides that there is a bundle together with Hulu and
ESPN for the price of Netflix Standard Plan.
HBO was the hardest to acquire data, as they are offering three different services, and
the price of Go is not set, it depends of the TV provider. They do not have any special
plan, at HBO only the different services’ prices are listed.
Hulu is the cheapest option, what is interesting that their basic plan is not ad-free already.
They have the option for Live TV as well (similar service as Youtube TV).Amazon Prime
has a similar deal like Disney+ as their annual plan is about 9-10 times the monthly price.
According to pricing Netflix is not offering the best deal. Their basic plan is about average
price, but their Standard and Premium plan is not offering too much extra service,
however the Premium is twice as expensive as the Basic one. Based only the pricing
Disney+ bundle seems to be the best option, where Hulu and ESPN is also included.
3.4.2 Content
For this subchapter the idea is to compare the number of original TV shows available at
the services.
As it is seen in the figure 3, Netflix has produced by far the most original TV Shows in
the market. The second is Amazon Prime and the third is Hulu. However, Disney+ is also
worth mentioning as they are a new service and they have already produced 17 originals.
If value creation is only seen by original content creation Netflix is definitely offering the
number one service in the market.
In Table 3 is the availability for the different streaming platforms. The sources for the
table are the streaming platforms’ own websites. My original hypotheses was that the
newer ones will be available for less devices, but as it can be seen almost every one of
them is offering the same devices.
For Netflix and Amazon Prime the Set-Top Boxes and Blu-ray Players are available as
well, which can have some advantages for them, but besides that none of the companies
offers something unique.
Name of Android iOS Windows PlayStation Xbox Smart Offline Set- Blu-ray
the TV (download) Top Players
streaming Boxes
platform
Netflix x x x x x x x x x
Disney+ x x x x x x x
HBO x x x x x x x
(Max)
Hulu x x x x x x x
Amazon x x x x x x x x x
Prime
Youtube x x x x x
TV
Table 3: Available devices for each streaming service
For this subchapter the idea was to gather the reviews for every company from
Glassdoor, as for creating value, happy employees are a key. Also the conscious
customers tend to use services where they know that the employees are satisfied.
In Table 4 are the results. All of them tends to have approximately the same results, HBO
has a lesser overall rating. Based on employee reviews all of these companies could be
a good choice, none of them seems to be outstandingly good or unacceptably bad.
3.5 Conclusion
The streaming industry on the global level has numerous companies, thus Netflix is no
longer operating at a Blue Ocean. Based on the analysed aspects in this chapter Netflix
could still be considered as a forerunner on the global market. Netflix’s advantage to the
customers is the content offered and created by Netflix and the fact that Netflix is
reachable from a wide range of devices. Netflix also offers a unique company culture
and employees are satisfied to work there.
In this part the value creation of Netflix and its competitors is being assessed as well, but
from the Hungarian customers point of view, based on the survey results.
4.1 Method
This survey was shared on different social media platforms. It was shared on my own
social media accounts, therefore the user group is filtered to Hungarians so the survey
will not hold the criteria of representativeness. The goal with the survey was to get some
insights about what Hungarian customers think about Netflix. The survey was conducted
in hungarian language, the exact questions are found in the appendix, with the
translations.
The survey was answered by 217 people. 171 of the surveyees were female and 46
were male. Based on the results, the survey gives the point of view of Hungarian young-
adult females.
For the age there were five categories available. There were 7 people, who were under
18 years old. 128 of the participants were 19-24 years old, and 66 were between 25 and
35 years old. 9 people were 36-50 and 7 of them were over 51 years old.
From the participants 184 people have responded that they are using Netflix. 5,9% of
these users have started using Netflix in 2016, which was the year Netflix started its
operations in Hungary. 40,9% of the participants registered between 2017 and 2019 and
53,2% of the users since 2020. The reason behind the 2020 numbers could be the
lockdowns and the Covid-19, but it is showing that Netflix’s popularity has grown during
the years.
94 people have answered that they are using other streaming platforms, from Figure 6
shows that besides Netflix, HBO Go was the most frequent answer.
122 participants are only using Netflix.They have answered why did they choose Netflix
in particular, the most frequent answers were the price, the quantity of the movies and
series, the quantity of hungarian subtitles / dubbings and the movies created by Netflix.
In Figure 6 it is showing, that the most important factor was the quantity of movies and
series and the quantity of Netflix productions.
Price
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
There was a question for the participants who use Netflix and another platform asking
which one do they prefer. It was an open question, the exact question can be found in
the Appendix as question 8. 87 people responded to that, from which 62 people
answered that they prefer Netflix, and 8 participants answered that it depends or they
equally like Netflix and the others.
For the open question ”What do you like about Netflix?” the participants gave the
following answers:
Category Answers
Content • Quality and quantity of movies
produced by Netflix
• Quantity of hungarian dubbing
• Trailers
Other • Notifications
• Can be used on mobile phones /
SmartTV
• Price / Family price package
The last question was about what Netflix could do to improve its services. The answers
were the following:
Category Answer
Content • Offering the same selection as in
the US version (in Hungary less
movie is available)
• Improving quality of movies
• More hungarian subtitle / dubbing
(this was the most frequent
answer)
• Trailers could contain less spoiler
• Less political correct content
• Improve quality of subtitles
According to the survey Netflix is the most popular option among the participants and
from Netflix’s competitors HBO Go is the other widely used streaming platform.
According to the survey the answerers who subscribe to more than one provider, prefer
usually Netflix, because of its price, the range of selection and the quantity of movies
available with Hungarian subtitles and dubbing.
Based on the answers, Netflix has more advantages than disadvantages based on the
results Netflix seem to be creating value and offering valuable services to its users.
The proposition canvas has two parts, the first is the customer profile and the second is
the value map. Part of the customer profile is the customer jobs, pains and gains. The
value map is the answer for the customer profile, it consists of the product and services
a company is offering, and their pain relievers and gain creators. (Osterwalder, et al.,
2014) The canvas is created by the author of the Thesis based on the author’s own
knowledge and experience and the answers of the survey, so it reflects the opinion of
Hungarian young-adult women about Netflix’s value proposition.
For the customer profile it is needed, to decide which customer jobs a customer wants
to fulfill, and to get to know the customer gains and pains (Osterwalder, Pigneur,
Bernarda, Smith, & Papadakos, 2014.) The products and services are the answer from
a company to the customer jobs specified.
A customer job can be functional, when the customer is trying to perform or complete a
specific task. (Osterwalder, et al., 2014) Functional jobs, in this case, are to find good
movies to watch online. Also to have a good recommendation system and to be able to
access the content on many devices and to be able to download the movies for watching
them offline later. From this functional jobs Netflix is offering all of these as services.
A customer job can also be social, to look good or gain power or status. (Osterwalder, et
al., 2014) In this case a social customer job could be to get to know the popular movies.
As Netflix is offering popcultural productions, customers can use it to look good, to know
the ”important” and ”cool” movies or TV shows, also to be able to bond with their friends
or to look movies together.
Another type of customer jobs are the personal/emotional jobs, which means that the
customer is seeking an emotional state, for example feeling good or secure. One
personal customer job is to enjoy themselves while watching movies whenever the
customers want. (Osterwalder, et al., 2014) As Netflix is offering experiences with its
movies, the customers can feel better after a movie watched on the platform.
The last kind of customer jobs are the supporting jobs, which arise in different roles. One
can be the cocreator of value, which are reviewing or giving feedback for a service, and
this is an existing job at the streaming platforms. Customers want to be able to review
the movies they have watched. Another role is the so-called transferrer of value, which
are related to the end of a value proposition’s life cycle, for example canceling
subscription. (Osterwalder, et al., 2014) At Netflix this is present as cancelling the
monthly subscriptions, also the reviewing is an existing service. However, at Netflix the
customer is only able to say whether they have liked or not the movie, in the survey
improvement suggestions there were several answers about improving the rating system
as well.
To summarize the customer jobs wanted at Netflix are the following, with their
importances in the parentheses:
”Customer pains describe anything that annoys your customers before, during and after
trying to get a job done or simply prevents them from getting a job done. Pains also
describe risks, that is potential bad outcomes, related to getting a job done badly or not
at all.” (Osterwalder, et al., 2014)
Customer pains are also described in more groups, they can be either undesired
outcomes, or obstacles or risks.
The undesired outcomes are in the case of video streaming for example that the video
player works badly (crashes, stops unexpectedly etc.). Some undesired characteristics
could be for example that the customers need high quality internet to watch the movies
online.
For these concerns above the pain relievers from Netflix are the following ones. The
video players are easy to manage with only a few buttons, and a help center available
with a high number of existing answers for issues. For the concern of needing high speed
internet, the answer from Netflix is the option of downloading movies and watching them
offline later.
Obstacles are the pains that are preventing the customers from starting with a job. This
can be for example if a customer is not sure that a streaming platform is suitable for their
needs. Netflix’s answer for this obstacle is to offer a one month free subscription, so
customers can try out Netflix’s services.
The third type of pain is a risk, which lists everything that could go wrong. For example
if a customer is afraid to pay with credit card online, because of security issues could
happen. Netflix’s answer for that pain is the option to pay with PayPal or gift cards
purchased in shops.
To summarize the customer pains are the following, with their severities in the
parentheses:
”Gains describe the outcomes and benefits your customers want. Some gains are
required, expected or desired by customers.” (Osterwalder, et al., 2014)
Required gains from a streaming platform are for example, that movies can be played,
searched and rate. It is possible to subscribe, unsubscribe, be available to make
payment in different ways, change language, change users.
The expected gains are the ones that the customers are expecting from a solution, but
the solution would work without these gains as well. Given this case expected gains are
to reach the platform from different devices, to have a high video quality, be ad-free,
have an easy interface. Netflix offers almost all of those, except the high video quality,
which is only available in a higher price plan.
Desired gains are what go beyond even the expected gains, but customers would love
to have it. Desired gains from a streaming platform are relevant recommendations.
Desired gain could be also to have a wide range of movies available, or to have a wide
range of movies available with Hungarian subtitles/dubbing. Netflix is using machine
learning based recommendations to the users based on their previous watching history
and ratings.
To summarize the customer gains are the following, with their relevances in the
parentheses:
Netflix is responding to the customer jobs, gains and pains, therefore Netflix is
creating value for the customers.
5 CONCLUSION
Netflix started as a DVD rental company in the US and turned itself into a worldwide
known brand. Netflix managed to grow measurably during the COVID-19 pandemic as
well.
During the last few years Netflix got some competitors, Disney+ seems to be the biggest
one of them. As more and more streaming platforms are starting and the market is
fragmenting the future of streaming platforms seems questionable. My prediction is that
some of the bigger companies will survive and share the market among themselves or
that the companies will start collaborating.
The research work used in this thesis was the survey. The questions were closed and
open ones as well, it was easy to aggregate the answers and the open questions gave
good insight into the opinion of Netflix’s users, also they have reflected my findings on
the Value Canvas.
Some following research topics after my research could be the future of Netflix or
streaming in general.
REFERENCES
Easley, R. F., Guo, H. & Kraemer, J., 2016. From Net Neutrality to Data Neutrality.
Information Systems Research, 2(29), pp. 253-272.
Osterwalder, A. et al., 2014. Value proposition design: how to create products and
services customers want: get started with. Hoboken: Wiley.
Thouin, F. & Coates, M., 2007. Video-on-Demand Networks: Design Approaches and
Future Challenges. IEEE Network, 21(2), pp. 42-48.
1. Nem (Sex)
Options given: Férfi (Male) and Nő (Female)
2. Életkor (Age)
5. Használsz egyéb streaming szolgáltatást? Ha nem, akkor hagyd ki. (Are you using
any other streaming services? If no, leave it empty.)
Options given:
Amazon Prime, HBO GO, Hulu, Disney+, Other
6. Ha csak Netflixet használsz, miért erre esett a választásod? (If you are only using
Netflix, why did you choose it?)
Options given:
Ár (Price)
Kínálat (Selection)
Magyar felirat / Szinkron mennyisége (Quantity of hungarian subtitles, dubbing)
Saját gyártású filmek (Movies produced by Netflix)
Egyéb (Other)
7. Ha csak olyanra fizetsz elő, ami nem Netflix, miért erre esett a választásod? (If you
are only using a service which is not Netflix, why did you choose it?)
Options given are the same as in question 6.
8. Ha Netflixre és másra is előfizetsz, a kettő közül melyiket szereted jobban, miért? (If
you are subscribing to Netflix and other streaming services, which one do you prefer
and why?)
Open question.
9. Ha használtál már Netflixet, mi tetszett benne? (If you have used Netflix anytime,
what did you like?)
Open question.
10. Ha használtál már Netflixet, mit éreztél negatívumnak, miben lehetnének jobbak? (If
you have used Netflix anytime, what did you feel as a disadvantage, what could they
do to improve?)
Open question.