Workshop on Digital Transformation for SMEs

The founder of Netflix was Reed Hastings, who rented video tapes in Blockbuster, a rental video store with many branches in the United States, but was fined by Blockbuster for returning the video tapes late. He deeply felt the anxiety of users about the late video tape, so he referred to the concept of a fitness center with a monthly fee and unlimited use, and founded Netflix in 1997. Users only need to pay a monthly fee and click on the webpage to watch it. Netflix will send the DVD to the user’s home, and as long as it is sent back after watching, it can be rented to watch another movie. It seems that with the maturity of online streaming technology, Netflix has become a platform for streaming movies and albums online.

But Netflix still didn’t stop. When more and more online platforms joined, Netflix used design thinking and realized that what customers were looking for were episodes with rich stories, so it began to produce its own shows and movies, and at the same time cooperate with other countries around the world. The creative production team signed the exclusive broadcast rights.

On the contrary, Blockbuster, a rental video kingdom that was very popular at the time, had already closed its doors in 2013 due to long-term neglect of the real pain points of customers, and not paying attention to the development of technology and changing its business model in a timely manner.
It is not necessarily an international enterprise that can use design thinking. When designing products and services, Hong Kong SMEs should also apply the design thinking model, so that the company can be closer to the needs of customers and bring long-term and stable income.