INTRODUCTION
Operational excellence is the process of carrying out a business strategy in a consistent and effective manner. It focuses on ensuring that employees are happy and the needs of the customers are met. Achieving operational excellence is not easy; effort must be put to achieve it. Additionally, to achieve operational excellence, a company must understand it fully, incorporate it in its culture and then later implement it. Every company work towards achieving operational excellence. One company that has achieved operational excellence is Netflix. Operational excellence has helped Netflix to grow and be outstanding in the market.
Netflix as a brand.
Netflix is a company that offers streaming services, which was founded in August 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph. Its first offices were in Scotts Valley, California, and ever since, it has grown to be one of the most used online entertainment platforms in over 190 countries worldwide (McFadden, 2020). Viewers can stream movies, animations, TV shows, and more by using any internet-connected device.
How Netflix is a differentiator in the market
The primary differentiator of Netflix in the market is its content. Netflix invests a lot of money and resources to ensure that its content is unique, and it has a wide range of appealing content. It is estimated that Netflix spent $7 billion to $ 8 in the year 2018 for content, which is said to be a lot of money to spend on one platform (Bowman, 2018).
Another differentiator is that Netflix has a content recommendation program. This has enabled Netflix to improve customer experience because they can tailor the preference of each consumer. This program has also been of great benefit to Netflix by ensuring that they have a customized solution for each consumer (Mohammed, 2018).
Netflix has a very user-friendly interface. This interface helps the consumers to navigate easily through their website. Every consumer is always looking forward to saving time, and for this reason, customers prefer Netflix for their interface.
The following are resources used by Netflix to ensure its success.
Netflix has invested heavily in technology, such as analytical tools. Netflix has incorporated big data in their systems. It knows the type of movies each viewer prefers, the number of videos a consumer watches, and when the consumer presses play or pause. By using Big Data, Netflix can get useful insights from all the data that it collects. One excellent concept of Big Data is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Artificial intelligence develops algorithms that learn patterns from a particular data set. Netflix uses AI to determine the type of movies, films, or TV shows that a viewer likes and gives them recommendations on what they should watch next. Recommendations automate the search engine and help the user to save on time (Minds, 2019).
The other resource that Netflix uses to ensure its success is the human resource. Netflix has one of the best filmmakers, creators, and producers, as compared to its competitors. Netflix is also famous for poaching the best filmmakers and producers. Their main aim is to provide the best content to their consumers and improve the consumer’s experience (Sakoui, 2018).
Another resource that has helped Netflix attain operational excellence is money. Money fuels all companies worldwide. Netflix gets money from many investors who believe in their business. They use it to pay for all their processes, including but not limited to their employees and their technology infrastructure.
Actions that were taken by Netflix to achieve operational excellence.
One of the actions that were taken by Netflix to achieve operational excellence is improving customer experience. By incorporating the automated movie recommendation system, Netflix was able to improve customer experience by ensuring that the content that they recommend to a consumer is relevant to that particular consumer (Mohammed, 2018).
Netflix decided to make their services readily available by reducing their service rates. By implementing this tactic, Netflix has reported a doubled increase in its sales in recent years (Bowman, 2018). This low service prices are making it hard for competitors like Disney to catch up with Netflix.
Another action that helped Netflix to achieve organizational excellence is by poaching talents. Netflix has gotten the best personnel from the best-known businesses and offered them double their compensations. One of the reasons that Netflix easily poaches creators is the freedom that Netflix offers its creators.
Conclusion.
Netflix has achieved organizational excellence by putting a lot of effort toward achieving operational excellence. Competitors like Blockbuster have tried to imitate how Netflix operates but were unable to echo the automated movie recommendation system, which has enabled Netflix to outdo them in the market, and has also helped them to serve their customers better (Mohammed, 2018). Netflix competitors were not able to have high-end technologies like Netflix. Thus Netflix will remain to be the top streaming service company for many years to come. Until their competitors decide to be unique, Netflix will continue to boom in the industry.