My syndicate mate and I are almost done with our E-Commerce course assignment that is due on Tuesday. The assignment is on a January 2007 Stanford GSB case on Netflix.
Netflix, for those of you who don't know, is the leading brand in online, mail-order DVD rentals [see Wikipedia entry]. The case is set in early 2005: Netflix has been in operation for seven years, last year Blockbuster entered the online DVD rentals market with a bang, and now Amazon is threatening to enter it as well (having already launched its online rental services in the UK).
The assignment is pretty straightforward and is what you would expect for a strategy case such as this one: discuss what Netflix has to offer (business case, strengths, weaknesses, etc.); discuss what happened when Blockbuster entered (what each side did, did well, and did poorly); and discuss what Netflix should do now. The challenge, of course, is to write all this down clearly and concisely (we have a strict 2,500 word limit that includes headers, footers, headings, attachments, references, etc.). I'm confident we've done a good job of it. I guess we'll find out just how good once we get our grade.
I really enjoyed doing this assignment, by the way. This kind of strategic analysis in the tech industry is precisely the kind of thing that interests me. In fact, one of my objectives for doing an MBA was specifically to learn how to do this. And thanks to professors like Doug Dow [faculty profile], who taught us the Business Strategy course, and John Asker [faculty profile], who taught us the Managerial Economics course -- and all the other professors who taught us all the other core courses, of course -- I think I've learnt that pretty well.
Meanwhile, the E-Commerce course itself is fantastic. It covers all things e-commerce from the management, strategic, operational, leadership, human resources, and organizational behavioural points of view and is taught by Pat Auger [faculty profile], an industry expert and one of the best teachers I've had so far.
Aside: A bit about my elective course choices and why I'm so happy this term.
When I first joined MBS and went through the entire list of electives offered here, I divided the courses I wanted to take into three sub-lists: courses I had to take, courses I really wanted to take, and courses that would be good to take. If I remember correctly, E-Commerce, Information Strategy, Negotiations, and Leadership were the only four in the first list. I'm taking all four of those this term so you can probably imagine how much I'm enjoying myself these days.
For completeness' sake, a whole bunch of strategy, entrepreneurship/new venture, and marketing courses made it to the second list. And about half the remaining courses made it to the third.
You'll hear more about the course as this term progresses.