Netflix's stellar growth is jeopardized by a changing competitive landscape and fluctuating trust from the market related to its strategy of extensive proprietary content development. With the rising presence of Google's YouTube and Amazon's Prime Video, as well as Apple's Apple TV Plus and Disney's Disney Plus entry into the ring, customers get access to a broader range of content and aggregated offerings. Still, content seems king, and Netflix seeks to outrun competitors with their own award winning and broad video library. That however requires increasing content investments followed by costly marketing efforts to sustain growth. Critics wonder if Netflix's continued binge-spending will translate into sustainable growth while debts increasingly weight on the balance sheet and cash flow remains negative. In a time when most competitors seek to vertically integrate or platformize, often fueled by deep pockets, is Netflix pursuing still the right strategy? Or does Netflix need to revise its business model in order to successfully compete also in the future? This case explores what's going on for and around Netflix, inviting students to redefine Netflix's future strategic direction.
Forging partnerships and investing in startups for new technologies can help companies catch up with rivals, but it doesn't always give them a competitive advantage. Most would do better to rethink their innovation systems. They must treat external innovation as a way of balancing and broadening their portfolios, not as a substitute for internal innovation. Only then will they be able to execute the transformations that will allow them to win the digital future.
Evelynn by Nicole Snobelen was an e-commerce clothing company based in London, Ontario, and was owned and operated by Nicole Snobelen. Snobelen had just been informed that a retail unit had become available for immediate occupancy at The Market at the Western Fair District in London (The Market). The Market housed a farmer's market on the main floor and an artisan's market on the second floor that featured distinctive locally handcrafted products. Snobelen had been waiting for a space to become available at The Market for some time, but now that the opportunity was becoming a reality, she wanted to thoroughly assess the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the decision before deciding to jump in.
Capillary Technologies, an Indian customer relationship management software as a service company, provided cloud-based omnichannel customer engagement and related services to retailers and brands. In a country well known for software service companies, based primarily on labour cost advantages, Capillary was founded as a business-to-business software company (i.e., an intellectual property company). After entering several Western markets, which was consistent with its lofty aspirations, Capillary decided to pursue Asian markets. The new venture relocated its headquarters from India to Singapore and made strong efforts to gain revenue in the Asia region-including the large, but intensely competitive, Chinese market. Capillary started by working with Western multinationals that were its customers in other markets. The company then began attracting local customers, as it established a Chinese technology team to cater to the unique technological ecosystems prevalent in China. Over a three-year period, Capillary achieved 200 per cent annual growth. With the opening of a new office in Guangzhou, Capillary then hoped to further deepen its presence in the Chinese market. What could the general manager do to help Capillary reach this goal within the next three years?
Spencer’s Retail, a fast-moving consumer goods retail chain in India, had been perceived as an expensive retailer exclusively for high-end consumers. A new sector head took over in 2013 and shifted the store from a positioning statement of “Taste the World” to “Make Fine Living Affordable.” Within five years, Spencer’s was making a profit. However, traditional grocery stores continued to dominate the Indian retail scene and were more heavily frequented by Indian shoppers. To maintain a sustainable profit, Spencer’s had to expand the business by opening more retail outlets and increasing same-store sales growth by increasing footfalls and basket size. What store format and combination of private label and national label products would help Spencer’s reach this goal?
Carlos Ghosn, a Brazilian-Lebanese-French, is by many counts, one of the - if not the - most celebrated automotive executives of the late 20th and early 21st century. This is a two-part case about his career, leadership, and decision-making. Part A starts in 1999, the early days of Ghosn's arrival in Japan, where he went on a mission to rescue Nissan, one of the biggest Japanese car manufacturers with a long tradition that had run into trouble and was in danger of bankruptcy. Ghosn went there after Renault entered into an alliance with Nissan in 1999. The case then goes back in time, following Ghosn from when he was born in Brazil, and then moved to Lebanon and later France, where he studied and began his career at Michelin. The case ends in November 2018, with talk about the potential merger of Renault and Nissan into a single company having stalled, leaving the alliance in status quo. Part A of the case is structured around a key tension: What happens when the cosmopolitan, melting-pot, aggressive Ghosn - who made his name as 'le cost-killer' - meets corporate Japan, with its very homogenous, indirect, and conflict-avoiding culture? Part B starts on November 19, 2018, when Carlos Ghosn is arrested as he arrives at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan. The accusations against him include allegations of misappropriation of company funds for personal use and concealment of a large amount of remuneration. According to the chief prosecutor, Ghosn's wrongdoings were more serious than insider trading. The case presents in some detail the different allegations against Ghosn, and then describes the reactions of Ghosn and Nissan to the accusations. It ends with a recounting of some of the subsequent events, including the granting of bail to Ghosn. Part B of the case is meant to facilitate discussion around a key question: How could someone as successful as Ghosn have come to engage in the kinds of behaviours he was accused of?
PVR Limited (PVR), the largest premium film exhibition company in India, with more than 750 screens, launched its Accessible Cinema Program in December 2018. Supported by its top management, PVR developed a culture of social responsibility that went beyond compliance. The program aimed to make PVR's cinemas accessible to people with disabilities and focused especially on providing content for people with hearing impairment, and visual impairment. PVR rolled out the program to 50 cinemas in the first phase, and the response from patrons was encouraging. However, rolling out the program to the entire chain would involve redesigning existing cinemas to make them accessible and would be operationally and financially challenging. Additionally, the success of the program was dependent upon the willingness of film producers to provide content suitable for visually- and hearing-impaired audiences. Although laws mandated the production of suitable content for people with disabilities, these laws were not consistently enforced. Making movie producers provide suitable content was not going to be easy. In 2019, now that the first phase of the accessibility program was launched, how could the company meet these continuing challenges going forward?
In August 2019, Fair Trade Jewellery Co., a mid-size jewellery retailer based in Toronto, Canada, was wondering how to ensure that its customers received responsibly sourced gold and diamond jewellery. The company had already devoted considerable amounts of time, energy, and expense to develop a responsible supply chain. Its activities toward that goal had included various initiatives beyond jewellery retail, such as providing inventory financing for artisanal miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After discovering that a key US partner along the supply chain may have not been following a clear chain-of-custody system in its refinery, the company was unsure how to proceed. Responsibly sourced gold was potentially being contaminated by other gold at the refinery, which led Fair Trade Jewellery Co. to consider opening its own local small-scale refinery. However, that initiative could mean considerable strategic risk and financial burden for the company. It could also have potential effects on its employees, who relied on the company for their livelihood. Did the company’s ethical mission require vertically integrating to such a considerable extent?
By the second quarter of 2018, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the online video technology company Bitmovin Inc. (Bitmovin) had propelled the start-up along an aggressive growth path. After founding the company in Austria, he had relocated Bitmovin’s headquarters to California’s Silicon Valley, raised more than US$40 million in investments in two funding rounds, and was now in the process of building a global sales organization for the company’s innovative online video infrastructure solutions. Within the next few years, the CEO wanted Bitmovin to achieve $100 million in revenues and initiate an initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York. However, Bitmovin’s rapid international growth had resulted in a globally dispersed organization in which effective communication and alignment were difficult to achieve. The sales team was able to close deals with big-name customers in the media industry, but marketing and demand generation had been neglected and there were not enough potential customers in the sales pipeline. The company had recently failed to reach its growth goals for the first time, and the CEO wondered whether the company still had the right sales strategy and the right person as its sales leader.
Ola Auto India (Ola) was the pioneer in cab aggregation services in India. In 2019, Ola needed to ensure that it remained the customer’s first choice for autorickshaw (auto) booking. Ola had so far faced moderate competition from small players, but competition was increasing from Uber Technologies Inc. With a service that was traditionally chosen for its low cost and easy availability, customer loyalty remained a challenge for all players in the market. How could Ola ensure customer loyalty and maintain its leadership position when Uber was garnering a higher net promoter score than Ola?
In January 2020, the proprietor of Basmati House Supermart (BHS), a large grocery retail outlet in India, terminated a partner retailer contract with Springers, an online retail platform. The proprietor had an ancestral property, located in a high-footfall area of the wholesale market, that could be developed into a retail outlet. In the new outlet, the broad options were to replicate the current retail business, focus selectively on staples and do more wholesale, or only focus on rice and develop it as a brand for larger distribution. Alternatively, the proprietor could rent the new property, wind down the grocery business, and invest the money in a fitness centre. Each option required its own particular investments, competence, and marketing strategy, and all options entailed considerable uncertainty and risk. BHS was steadily losing money; therefore, the decision had to be made quickly.
Sa Sa International Holdings Limited, a leading cosmetics retail group in Asia, announced on December 2, 2019 that it would close all 22 stores in Singapore. It attributed the closures to the less-than-satisfactory performance of its Singapore operations for many years, where it had recorded losses for six consecutive years. This case analyses the possible reasons for Sasa's store closures, and explores how an improved customer experience and omnichannel strategy delivered through phygital stores might have helped save the situation.
The two co-founders of PharmEasy, an online medical store and pharmacy website launched in 2015, faced a new challenge in December 2018. Recent judgments by the Madras and Delhi High Courts had suspended the operations of India's more than 250 online pharmacies until new industry regulations could be drafted. Only a few months earlier, in August 2018, the Indian government had released proposed draft regulations for the online sale of medicine. However, an organization representing more than 850,000 pharmacists in India had staged a one-day strike to protest the government's proposal. Should PharmEasy take a cautious approach with its ambitious expansion plans until the government introduces regulations? Or would its competitors seize the opportunity to move forward aggressively to gain market share? The co-founders recognized that the regulatory uncertainty was creating confusion. They needed to decide on their next steps quickly-and communicate their intentions to all stakeholders.
In late 2018, the founder and owner of Pupadise, Inc., a pet care business in Canada, was nearing her graduation from university and needed to decide what to do with the business she had built in her undergraduate years. Pupadise cared for clients' pets when the pet owners could not; its services primarily consisted of live-in and drop-in pet care. The owner was considering selling the business, but was concerned that the sale price would be low because her business had no traditional assets. Inspired by a guest speaker in her pricing class, she realized that her client list of 300 pet owners had value, but wondered how to price it. She had a meeting scheduled with a prospective buyer and wanted to prepare. Should she sell her business, and if so, for how much?
This case outlines various investment options for the CEO of JUST, Inc., Josh Tetrick, as he attempts to capture market share in the protein industry of the future. JUST, Inc. is a plant-based alternatives company and has been successful with a diverse portfolio of product offerings including JUST Egg. Trends such as worldwide population growth, rising global income, and increased ethical/environmental concerns suggest an ongoing demand for protein, but not from traditional meat. So, Tetrick weighs four main options: clean meat, plant-based meat, insect proteins, and the status quo of continuing product development in the plant-based alternatives space. Students will weigh the benefits and challenges of each option.
In May 2019, the vice-president of operations at Danby Products Ltd. (Danby) was concerned that the production facility for the company's latest product, Parcel Guard, would not be able to keep up with demand. Parcel Guard was one of the most anticipated new products that Danby had produced in years, and if the sales estimates were reliable, the vice-president needed to start thinking about how she could adjust capacity to keep up with new orders. The new production facility was located just east of Toronto, as Danby had determined that making the product locally would enable the company to respond faster to changes in demand while keeping costs under control. In order to meet anticipated demand, the options included adding new equipment to increase the capacity of the two production lines, adding a third production line, or adding additional shifts.