Netflix: Harvard Business Case Study

Netflix

Late one afternoon in January 2007, Reed Hastings had just concluded a meeting with his senior management team in the King Kong board room at Netflix’s corporate headquarters in Los Gatos, California. Hastings, the founder and CEO of the company, which pioneered online DVD rentals, was preparing to unveil Netflix’s highly anticipated entrance into the online video market. Many industry observers believed that the ability of customers to order movies through their computers for instant viewing, commonly referred to as video-on-demand (VOD), would quickly impact the large user base for Netflix’s core business.

Hastings looked across the third floor of the office building and the conference rooms named for some of his staff’s favorite films. A love of movies clearly ran deep among Netflix employees, and he was confident that one way or another, his team would maintain the company’s position as a leader in the home video market. But, as he reflected upon the years of investment and discussions surrounding the new feature that Netflix would be offering its customers, he could not help but think of the merits of the paths not chosen.

As the management team filed out of the board room around him, Hastings returned his thoughts to the present. While he believed that the DVD rental market would remain healthy for years into the future, he knew that this announcement would impact not just the market’s perception of his company but its ability to sustain its position as a giant in the media industry. With new resolve, Hastings returned to his desk to review his forthcoming announcement one more time.