Design Thinking Model for Innovation

Discuss aobut Innovation and Business Development condition of Blockbuster with respect to Netflix. 

Business innovation and development remains one of the elements of the business that can create value for company’s products or sustain the company in the market. Development of technologies assists the business to remain relevant in a more dynamic business environment that keeps on improving in terms of innovations. The business environment within Australia and globally has been changing with many companies adopting modern technologies to help them stir the business to the next level. In addition, innovation has turned out to be the competition front for companies in the current movie or gaming market. Blockbuster is one company within the movie service industry that is striving to meet the increasing demand for innovation and development. The online content streaming platform remains one of the business innovations and development that currently is adopted and implemented within movie or gaming industry. Online movie streaming innovation remains the competitive platform for current business and is promising if well implemented. The online content platform has various components that include streaming techniques, payment plans, and technological infrastructure. Innovative thinking can be enhanced through Design Thinking model that works from development of the idea to testing of the idea. Another area that needs serious consideration is the development of measurement for effectiveness of the content streaming platform. The following report explores online content streaming platform as innovative ideas for Blockbuster.

Blockbuster is one American movie service provider that offers a wide variety of movie services and gaming services. The company has been providing movie services over its platforms that include mails, rental shop, and movie theaters.  Stiff competition has been intensified with several companies coming into the market to venture in movie streaming. Blockbuster is left behind in movies technology due to its slow adoption of new innovation to movies streaming that include online movie streaming platforms. The proposed solution for the Blockbuster is to develop and implement an online content streaming platform that will enable the company to provide movies services to customer globally (Blockbuster 2018).

Design thinking model takes into account various steps involved in designing innovation with clear social values of the design. Design thinking model follows some five stages that include empathy, define, ideate, prototype, and test (Knct Social 2018).

Step 1 Empathy

Online streaming begins with considering human element within the innovation that mainly focuses on the target audience. Movie market consists of a number of social categories of people with different needs. The step, therefore, involves understanding the social need of customers that consume movie materials. The target audience for the technology will be online users that are willing to rent services for $1 dollar (Preston 2011).

Components of Online Movie Streaming

Steps 2 Define

The define step of innovative design thinking model involves the development of mission as guiding principle for the innovation. This step involves the definition of the areas that the innovation is addressing and the main innovation benefit to the business. The mission statement of the innovation is to make the business competitive both at the online platform and other movies selling platforms. The problem that the innovation is addressing is online movie streaming need of the market as many customers are currently online (You Tube 2017).

Step 3 Ideate

During the third step of mind thinking model the focus on incorporating various business ideas that can contribute to the innovation. Some of the ideas that are quite useful for building this business innovation are online streaming, internet marketing that includes mail marketing and mobile application marketing. These ideas are important for the competitive market that currently require online and internet marketing of Blockbuster products and services. Incorporation of many different ideas is important for the development of innovation that will make the business competitive in the market (Umstead 2017).

Step 4 Prototype

The prototype stage of the mind thinking model entails demonstration of the online movie streaming before actual implementation. This stage involves the development of a demo tape of the business innovation that the Blockbuster will start. It is important to understand at this stage of the mind thinking model whether the whole innovation will work in the marketplace. In addition, the business needs to understand at this stage the reaction or response of the customers upon implementation of the online movie platform. Customer preference for the product is another area that needs to be considered at the prototype stage of developing mind thinking model (Staples 2016).

Step 5 test

Upon design of the prototype, the next stage of the mind thinking model involves testing the platform to get the reaction and response of customers. Testing the platform will help the business obtain feedback from customers that express their view on the new product that will be implemented in the market. Moreover, the business needs to review feedback on the innovation to ensures that the final stages of the development incorporate customer views. Blockbuster at this point gets closer to users to know what needs to take charge of the products well before deployment into the market (Steel 2015).

Components of online moving streaming are based on some technologies that allow customers to view or watch movies online from the company online platform. The technological components of the platform can be divided into digital streaming or multicasting technologies. Multicasting technologies are organized into server system that enables the company to cast its products over the internet.

Transition Technique of Video Streaming

Multicasting

Firstly, multicast has a single server transmitting contents to many servers in a configuration that is similar to radio station streaming. This technology involves loading contents into the server of the company which is then broadcasted on various servers through multicast routers. Client servers include those components that are based on the device that can also be application programs for the company (Grant and Meadows 2009, pp.114).

Figure 1Multicasting streaming technology component

Pseudo-streaming

Pseudo-streaming involves downloading a movie before streaming and requires servers that broadcast this content. This technology allows clients to play movies before and during downloading of the movie file. A good product that has this technology is YouTube from Google company. This content has various frames to allow display of the content whether through live streaming or downloading. Media server receives the contents through different internet protocols such as RTMP (Real-Time Message Protocol, an Adobe standard used by Flash streaming), where the port used is 1935 (HTTPÂ’s is 80) (Malone 2017, pp 29–29).

Figure 2: Components of Pseudo streaming

Online Streaming techniques

Online streaming of the Blockbuster movies and games content requires various components. Online streaming of movies and games requires an understanding of the various type of streaming innovations and technologies

Firstly, transition technique of video streaming enables the customer to pay for the movie or game they want a particularly movies or videos on demand.  Under this technique, transitional video on demand (TVOD) will be used to allow consumers pay for videos or movies before they start watching. For instance, customers pay 1 dollar before they start watching movies and games. In addition, this technique requires customers to pay for each movie they watched under TVOD plan. Sub categories or components under TVOD are electronic sell-through (EST) and download to rent (DTR). EST involves purchasing movies over the platform before downloading these contents for permanent consumption. The second category of the TVOD is DTR that involve renting movie content for a limited period of time (Kaysen 2015).

Secondly, online movie streaming can also take the model of Subscription VOD (SVOD) that involves charging customers depending on the time of streaming contents. For instance, customers can be charged per day, month or year for online streaming of various movie contents or games. The company can use this technique to develop a content plan that is grouped into days or months. This innovation is used by many different companies and good examples company is the closest competitors such as Amazon Video, Now TV, TVPlayer, Netflix, Hulu Plus. Companies such as Netflix have more than 40 original movie contents by 2017. In addition, the company needs to invest in this plan to incorporate nearly all those movies that have been watched and new videos for more profitability (Giuffre 2014, pp 126–127).

Subscription VOD

Near video on demand (NVOD) is another category of the innovation that entails streaming movies based pay per view plan. The program involves a multichannel system that adds many different movie channels to give customer open forum to select the type of movie or game they want to stream. For instance, customers can watch the trailer version of movies for a period of 10-20 minute without necessarily watching the whole movies. Moreover, customers with no access to movies under this plan can also tune to the applications that are formed by satellite connections. This plan has enables many videos on demand providers to incorporate more than 40 channels by early the year 2002. This platform has various service platforms that include Dish Network and DirecTV can also be used to broadcast network for movie streaming (Baysinger 2016).

Push video on demand is another way of streaming movies where the company “pushes” the content out to the viewer’s set-top box without the viewer having requested the content. This method of movie streaming is also called no true streaming since the viewer can stream contents without bandwidth or connectivity that is required for streaming. Under this plan, the company will utilize its movie streaming infrastructure by pre-loading the most popular contents. In addition, the Blockbuster will push some content to the customer as the weekly playlist without consumer’s preference. This allows limited choice of content that customers can stream at one time (Patrikakis, Papaoulakis, Stefanoudaki & Nunes 2009).

The nature of the technology

The innovation that the Blockbuster will use is both disruptive and sustaining innovation. The online content streaming platform will create a new market and at the same time sustain the business in the market. Firstly, the content streaming platform is a sustaining innovation as it seeks to sustain the Blockbuster products in the movie market that is currently dominant in the market. For the Blockbuster to compete with other companies in the movies market, the business has to implement a sustaining innovation (Lowensohn 2008). This online content streaming platform has been developed and implemented by many different companies and hence good marketing performance. Moreover, the innovation has a high projection of ensuring the Blockbuster remains in the market despite many new companies coming into the market (Glen 2010).

Secondly, the online content streaming platform is also disruptive innovation that will introduce a new market for the business. The business through this new innovation takes into account new market strategy to create new value network for the company (Saylor 2012, p. 86). The innovation intends to disrupt market through the introduction of new products line for the company. Online content streaming platform introduces an online market for various movies, gaming products for Blockbuster. Moreover, the online streaming platform also serves to create a wide value network for movies that will change the operation of the company. This has a high probability of increasing market share for the company within America and globally. Blockbuster will have a new market for the new product that includes the online streaming platform (Kellner 2013).  

Near Video on Demand (NVOD)

There are two main ways to measure the effectiveness of the movie streaming platform for the company and this is based on measuring various pay plans and measuring performance of the platform. Measuring pay plan involves measuring customer based behaviors across the platform and their subscription preference. The second platform is measuring the performance of the platform based on video quality and infrastructure performance.

Customers behavior measurement

There are many different ways to measure the effectiveness of the online content streaming platform based on subscription or behavior. Firstly, the time period that customers take to watch show is one way to measure effectiveness. Attention span and drop-off rates is metrics that is used to determines the period of time that customers take watching movie contents.  Secondly, the number of views will also be used to measure effectiveness of the platform. Click through rates is one way that help determines the number of users that view movie or some contents (Gonçalves, Costa & Couto 2016). Thirdly, customer rating and satisfaction comments will give feedback necessary for measuring effectiveness. The platform has comment section that allows customers to comment and express their view. Fourthly, conversion rate that determines the number of people view contents to the number payment or subscriptions received for a period of time (Oleg 2017). Demographic information is used to measure the customer behaviors based on income and is used to determine the payment plans for the customer. Lastly, Bounce rate is another way of measuring the effectiveness of the online content streaming that determines the number of view without payment, rent or subscription. Bouncing rate is also important determination of the client preference that forms part of client satisfaction data (Croushore 2011, pp. 72-100).

There are ways to measure the performance of platform

Measuring performance of the platform in terms of video quality and streaming quality of the platform. Buffer Fill is a metrics that determines the waiting time before the content start playing. Bit rate measures the quality of video contents broadcasted on the platform. Moreover, bit rate measure the rate of bits transmitted over a period of time from the company’s server to client’s server (McGregor, Driscoll & McDowell 2010, p. 47–48). Lag Length determines the speed of download once the buffer is filled or slow rate after when buffer is drained. Lag Length therefore combine the time waiting to for the buffer response. Lag Ratio is another include waiting time before buffer fill and the watching time. Play length measures the amount of data streamed or used by customers over a period of time as this shows the capacity of the company’s infrastructure. This is also important for future development facilities or data center for more capacity (Lansing 2015, pp 19).

Push Video on Demand

Adoption and implementation the online content streaming platform have some potential difficulties that may affect the business. Firstly, the legal framework for adoption and implementation of the business online movie streaming platform is limiting factor. When compared to the Australian case where there is no clear legal framework to control the online moving streaming business (Lauren 2017). Regulation of various components or contents is another area that will require regulations. Secondly, Bandwidth Limitations is another difficulty that will potentially affect the innovation since various movie qualities require certain movie streaming network and resolution. This assist in streaming speed and display frame for the content viewed yet where the continuous streaming limits the bandwidth leading to exacerbation (Petley 2014, pp 260–284). Thirdly, device compatibility is another difficulty that affects the online content streaming as it limits the number of customers using the product. This implies that for maximum subscription and renting of online content the business need to develop a web support technologies that will fit within many different devices ranging from mobile to computers (Grizzle 2017). 

Conclusion

In conclusion, business innovation and development remains important business aspect that can sustain or create new value for the business. Currently, a business that strives in competitive market environment develops and implements various innovative business ideas. One of the current business innovations that help business strive and compete in the market is online service provision. Blockbuster is movie and gaming service provider that has slugged behind due to lack of current innovations such as online streaming innovation. Development and implementation of online content streaming platform require an understanding of various components of the innovation. In addition, online movie and gaming platform involves various measurement for effectiveness to ensure that the innovation is successful. This innovation is both disruptive since it creates a new market and also sustaining due to its ability to sustain the Blockbuster in the movie market.

In light of the online content streaming innovation, there are some recommendations that can help the Blockbuster realize this innovation. Firstly, the Blockbuster need to develop and implement the online content streaming platform. The company can acquire infrastructure that will allow the company to introduce the technology to its customers. In addition, the company can come up with a plan to develop the online platform. Secondly, the company needs to develop an application that supports the online movies streaming platform. This will solve the display problem and incompatibility problem with devices. For instance, developing app for the company that supports Smartphone will help the company realize many mobile market penetration. Currently, many businesses have shifted their focus to a mobile market where some Smartphone systems such as android and apple are good players (Saylor 2012, p. 86). Therefore developing mobile web support software will help realize the full potential of this market. Thirdly, the company needs to develop the online streaming platform with many different payment plans. Studies show that different customers have different behaviors that need to use in developing the platform. Some customers prefer pay-per-view while other prefer downloading media before watching later and these factors need to be used in developing the online movie streaming platform. Moreover, the platform will be used by different customers using different modes of payment and this need to be considered in developing the online content streaming platform (Grant and Meadows 2009, pp.114

Conclusion

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