THE HORIZON MIND:
The Horizon Mind covers the 6 elements to each topic in the blogs; includes Overview, MyStory, MyAnalysis, Iconic References, Summary and What’s Next.
Horizon is defined as the line at which the earth’s surface and the sky appear to meet and it is defined as the limit of a person’s knowledge, experience, or interest.
The Horizon Mind discusses the overall topic with iconic references as resemblance of events to be remembered for the betterment of the future. Humans tend to believe things which have some kind of evidence attached to it.
1.0 OVERVIEW
Mindset is the king of everything
Blockbuster, officially known as Blockbuster LLC and also known as Blockbuster Video; started in 1985, was an American-based provider of home movie and video game rental services. Blockbuster consisted of 9,094 stores and employed approximately 84,300 people: 58,500 in the United States and 25,800 in other countries.
Blockbuster had evolved tremendously since 1985 into multiple strategies of positioning its stores in multiple countries and changing of its leadership until 2010. Unfortunately, Blockbuster had come into failure with a filing of a bankruptcy in 2010.
Despite of Blockbuster imposing its late fees strategy in 2005 which contributed into a revenue of USD800 million in a year, Blockbuster failed to fully understand the shifts of its customers’ demand and appetite towards the video services.
With its huge operating cost to sustain the company’s operations and declining revenue due to the customers’ preference towards Netflix; an American subscription streaming service and video production company, Blockbuster had to cease all its operations except its last standing store is still remained in operation in Bend, Oregon.
In 2009, Netflix posted earnings of $116 million. Meanwhile, Blockbuster, with its continuing business problems and legal battles, lost USD$518 million. On July 1, 2010, Blockbuster was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Its foray into video-on-demand streaming came too late, and over the next three years, Blockbuster died in a slow and painful death. DVD-by-mail services stopped, its various partnerships folded, and stores worldwide were rapidly plunged into administration.
The business model of Netflix has proven the success which followed by other new video streaming platforms such as Viu, Disney Hotstar, Tonton and others.
At DYNE, we are passionate to cultivate innovation for our clients. We cannot win the race by standing still. Tag along with DYNE to be creative in cultivating innovations for your businesses.
So choose to be among the few today.
Reset your mindset to make the difference.
Planning is everything but the mindset is the king of everything.
2.0. MY STORY - Why am I sharing this writing with you?
As an observer and a business analyst, I had been observing the things in my life and in front of me with a lot of questions such as why it is happening, why it failed and did they know how to solve it from the beginning? should be better than when it became worse? And the question continues.. As I was witnessing the falls of my previous companies that my colleagues and my former bosses had to suffer due to the out of income in the coming months; had given the impact to myself to uncover the real reason of the failures.
How come a company that had been doing well in the business but failed in the middle of the operation?
The “Iconic Reference” of The Titanic Mindsets will further explain on how The RMS Titanic’s 1912 was succumbed in the seabed of The Atlantic Ocean.
In this analysis of the falls and failures of the used to be successful international companies in the world, we need to have the empathy skills of experiencing the actions taken by the “captains of the ships” or the management of the companies that made the companies failed in the middle of the journeys.
“Most people don’t really want the truth.
They just want constant reassurance that what they believe is the truth.” - Anonymous
3.0 MY ANALYSIS
a) Blockbuster was about to make the right strategic moves but Blockbuster’s CEO; John Antioco had made the most notorious failure when turning down an opportunity to buy Netflix for $50 million in 2000 (the video-streaming service was valued at USD$235 billion in 2021).
b) Blockbuster had failed to understand the KYCs (KYC-1 and KYC-2) of knowing their customers’ demands (Know Your Customers later known as KYC-1) and knowing their competitors’ strategies (Know Your Competitors later known as KYC-2). Failing in understanding these two (2) KYCs had contributed to huge setbacks to Blockbuster causing them to cease operations.
c) Know Your Customer (KYC-1) corresponds to the process carried out by businesses to identify their customers into detailed scope of interests, demands, preferences, lifestyles and others.
A closer and a better understanding of knowing your customers, the better improvements you could do for your products or services and your business performances.
These information will determine the supply and demand equation between the business and the customers. Without the right product-fit to the customer’s demands, your business would fail.
The KYC-1 exercise should be done occasionally by the company to at least aware on what the customers are experiencing at the particular moment. Any updates or feedbacks from the customers, the management should react to get to feedback either to modify the product’s offerings or the replace the products or any strategic moves to get the product-fits to the customer’s demands.
d) KYC-1 exercise should be done concurrently with KYC-2 (Know Your Competitor) in order to get the best market-fit and product-fit for your products to your customers.
Know Your Competitor (KYC-2) - Knowing your competition in business is critical towards achieving the success. After all, how can you expect to survive in an industry if you don’t understand who are the major players (ie competitors) or the existing players (ie competitors) in the specific market?
In a landscape where every brand is fighting for their slice of a limited market, competitor analysis could assists the businesses to cut through the noise, establish a unique selling point and formulate an effective business strategy.
Competitor analysis gives the information on your business’s competitive advantage ie your unique value proposition in the market and your next strategic moves to be taken ahead of the other competitors in the market. But, most of the businesses had mislooked this important element in their businesses.
Understand your competitor’s current business strategy
“If you know thy enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles”.
Sun Tzu
Just as it is important to find your competitive advantage, if you know your competition’s movements, weak spots, strengths and marketing strategies, you can ultimately stay ahead of the game.
Businesses need to know who their competition is, what they are doing or have already tried to do, in order to discover traits and tactics that they can use to their advantage. Often, a real benefit of competitor analysis is learning what your competitors are doing before trying out something new yourself.
e) If Blockbuster could had the efforts to understand their KYCs prior to their failures, they should had explored the innovation aspects in their future products or offerings.
Innovation is the development of a certain value that meets a new need of a customer. Innovative organisations have the right to explore new ideas and commercialise these ideas quickly and effectively.
Businesses need to know who their competition is, what they are doing or have already tried to do, in order to discover traits and tactics that they can use to their advantage. Often, a real benefit of competitor analysis is learning what your competitors are doing before trying out something new yourself.
f) If Blockbuster could had the efforts to understand their KYCs prior to their failures, they should had explored the innovation aspects in their future products or offerings.
Design Thinking is a problem-solving methodology and cultivating innovation, by prioritizing the consumer’s needs above everything else, that uses empathy, experimentation, and iteration to generate innovative and successful solutions. It is frequently utilized in product and service design, but it can also be used in problem-solving and decision-making. The technique is centered on comprehending the people for whom the solution is being built, and it includes prototypes and testing to refine and improve the solution.
Innovation is the development of a certain value that meets a new need of a customer. Innovative organisations have the right to explore new ideas and commercialise these ideas quickly and effectively.
4.0 Iconic Reference – The RMS Titanic
The RMS Titanic is an iconic reference for the downfall history of Blockbuster. The Hubris Mindsets in Blockbuster’s position of having 9,094 stores around the world had ignored the management to analyse the Know-Your-Customer (KYC-1) exercise and Know-Your-Competitor (KYC-2) exercise.
Get to know into details of The Titanic Mindsets which had caused The RMS Titanic succumbed to the seabed of The Atlantic Ocean on 14 April 1912.
From the catastrophic event of The RMS Titanic, thousands had lost their lives due to one man’s fault that could be avoided due to The Titanic Mindsets.
While thousands of Blockbusters’ employees had lost their jobs due to The Titanic Mindsets too.
5.0 What’s next?
Blockbuster’s last outlet is still operating in the town of Bend, about 160 miles south of Portland. Blockbuster used to have 9,094 outlets around the world with a different business model compared to this last outlet. It had changed the business model to rely mostly on merchandise sales and tourism to keep it afloat.
The core and important lesson from Blockbuster’s failed business operation is The Titanic Mindsets which had blinded The Management to review and understand the KYCs (KYC-1 – Know Your Customers and KYC-2 – Know Your Competitors) despite their excessive number of outlets around the world but failed to understand its customers’ needs and behaviours.
Your business is like a ship sailing in a deep sea ocean,
You maybe the captain of your ship but not the owner of the ocean.
be prepared with the relevant preparation and expect for the unexpected.
Thus, It's time to reset, rethink, reposition your current position in the map.
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