Marketing Case Study: Quickflix's Disintermediation Strategy Analysis

This mini case study examines the concept of disintermediation and its application to the Quickflix business model. The assignment begins by defining disintermediation as the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain, particularly in the context of direct-to-consumer sales. It then explores the advantages and disadvantages of disintermediation, such as increased customer contact and reduced costs versus increased internal workload. The core of the case study focuses on Quickflix's transition from a 'post and play' model to a direct video streaming service in Australia and New Zealand. The analysis highlights the impact of digital competition, particularly from Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and YouTube, which drove the company's shift to offer streaming options. The case study concludes by emphasizing the potential benefits of this disintermediation strategy for Quickflix, particularly in providing direct access to a wide range of video content.

Mini Case Study Marketing

Contents
Discussion of the term disintermediation and its justification on the situation of Quickflix......1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................2

Discussion of the term disintermediation and its justification on the situation of Quickflix
Disintermediation refers to the removal of intermediaries within economics from a supply
chain in connection with a series of transactions. It is an effective process of removing and
eliminating the middleman from future transactions. In addition to this, it is a situation in which
manufactures directly sell goods and services to consumers, rather than via stores etc. Therefore,
it is the elimination of intermediaries or middlemen in the supply chain (Zamani and Giaglis,
2018).
On the other hand, Disintermediation is the process that gives direct access to an
information, service or products to the user or end consumer that would otherwise need a
mediator such as salesperson, lawyer or wholesaler. The World Wide Web also often removed
the requirement for a mediator or intermediaries. End consumers simply have to study the
information, product or service for themselves, therefore changing the relation they have with the
service provider or manufacture. There are certain advantages as well as disadvantages of
Disintermediation. List of advantages are eliminating intermediary expenses, increase customer
contact, provides more control etc. List of disadvantages are increase in the internal workload,
increase costs, distributions channels are reduced etc. Therefore, disintermediation has both
positive and negative impact over business (Maharg, 2016).
Disintermediation cuts out or eliminates the middleman. With the use of Internet,
organisations and even manufacturers can directly deal with users or customers, which is an
essential factor in reducing the outlay of servicing clients. The higher transparency of market
frequently enables the purchasers to pay less as they directly deal with the manufacturer,
wholesaler or retailer. As another option, purchaser can also purchase directly from wholesalers.
Therefore, it is an essential factor that helps both companies as well as customers by making
strong relationship with each other. Disintermediation is also support an organisation by
increasing sales of their products because there are no middlemen that require amount of capital
for providing product, service or information to the customers (Raghavan and Pargman, 2017).
It is clear from the above description of concept that initially Quickflix had faced the
situation of disintermediation where its changed the approach ‘post and play’ to a ‘download and
play’. Currently, the organisation has the business model where it provides the direct video
streaming services to the consumers of Australia and New Zealand. It provides the large number
of movies over different range of smart TV’s, games consoles, Blu-ray players, desktops,
laptops, mobiles, tablets and some other devices. This organisation also provides the premium
content i.e. latest release movies. The main reason behind the change in business model of
Quickflix was intense level competition presence in the market by numerous number of players
like Netflix that have large number of subscribers and business model of internet delivery. This
change is also must from the evolving nature of industry where Amazon, Apple and YouTube
also offering streaming video subscription services and simultaneously have large number of
subscribers. The benefit of such disintermediation will be must ascertained by Quickflix in future
as providing direct streaming option of old and new videos over single platform.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Zamani, E. D. and Giaglis, G. M., 2018. With a little help from the miners: distributed ledger
technology and market disintermediation. Industrial Management & Data Systems.
Maharg, P., 2016. Disintermediation. The Law Teacher. 50(1). pp.114-131.
Raghavan, B. and Pargman, D., 2017, May. Means and ends in human-computer interaction:
Sustainability through disintermediation. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference
on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 786-796).
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