Netflix’s Gibson Biddle: How to Merge Data and Culture to Drive Innovation – Vegas 2025

SAPinsider 2025 Vegas is rapidly approaching, as some of the luminaries, leaders, and speakers will all gather together at the Bellagio March 18-20, 2025 to discuss the latest trends, insights, and strategies shaping the SAP landscape. 

Among the list of hotly anticipated speakers is Gibson Biddle, former VP of Product at Netflix. Biddle is a seasoned speaker and a leading authority in the field of product strategy. In his time at Netflix, Biddle helped cut cancellation rates in half by honing product strategy and enhancing personalization – by being data-led. 

Turning Data into Actionable Insights 

As any SAP user knows, data is the new gold. No matter the role, every professional is using data to drive better decision making to hit their business goals. In his address, Biddle will underscore the importance of using data to drive product strategy and business decisions, as well as helping companies understand the different types of data they need to gather and how best to leverage it. 

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While working at Netflix, Biddle noted that the company was “obsessed” with its customers – how to better understand them, reach them, and give them what they want. In his presentation, attendees will come to understand the four main types of data they can use to better understand their customers. Further, they will walk away knowing how to leverage that data for what Biddle calls the DHM product strategy framework. 

• Delighting customers with 

• Hard-to-copy innovations that provide 

• Margin-enhancing features 

The idea behind DHM is that delighting customers alone isn’t enough—companies must also develop unique, difficult-to-replicate advantages and ensure that their strategies contribute to long-term profitability for reinvestment. As many SAP end-users migrate to the cloud, existing processes and ways of working are being reassessed for future company and customer needs. The DHM framework provides a fresh perspective in this ways-of-working reassessment. 

This framework is also essential to understanding how to gain a competitive advantage. In order to measure that advantage, Biddle suggests that companies develop their own proxy metric that can act as a yard stick to determine how they are faring in their quest to succeed in the DHM framework. 

“We’re all in service to the customer, and the product strategy is an articulation of how we hope to make their experience better, how we hope to change customer behavior – in Netflix’s case, to get them retained a little bit better every year. We’re all in service to that. So the next important thing is, what are the proxy metrics that we’re in service to?” said Biddle. 

Culture is a journey, not a destination  

While data is important, Biddle also stresses the importance of culture. Companies need a strong corporate culture. Building a dynamic yet cohesive culture that allows a workforce to maximize their talent is, of course, easier said than done. But Biddle emphasized that it is absolutely necessary to build a culture where employees feel comfortable trying and failing to find new strategies. 

Even at the most successful companies like Netflix, Biddle says experimentation is a consistent part of the workday. And with experimentation comes failure. 

“Whether you’re a startup or a consumer-focused company, or a B2B enterprise company, you always have access to two or three different sources of data. Netflix is a highly personalized experience today. I will show how Netflix got there, which is largely through a series of experiments, mainly failures, which are surprising. And then the key thing is learning from each of those failures and applying more insight,” said Biddle. 

Biddle also notes that culture is a journey, not a destination. Defining the precise culture of a company is nearly impossible, largely because it changes over time. Organizations should embrace the fact that their culture will shift and evolve as different people come in and out, or move to different roles within the organization.  

While culture will always be in flux, some constants should remain. For instance, trusting the judgement of employees and giving them the broader context of the larger business goals at play are essential.  

“Netflix doesn’t like meetings, but they understand the value of providing context to employees to make great decisions on their own without rules and processes. That’s why we were so focused on culture. When culture is executed well, it’s the anti-rules and process. When you hire bright people, you give them enough context, they’ll make great decisions on their own, because if you’re building a creative industry, many bright, creative folks hate rules and processes,” said Biddle. 

Setting the Keynote Stage for Better 

No matter what industry you work in, there is always room for growth, exploration, and innovation. Companies must find their own unique ways to combine a positive culture with data-driven insights to excel beyond their previous best.  

Companies hoping to learn more about how to stoke their own “obsession” to surprise and delight their customers should make sure they’re in the keynote room at 8:45am on 18th March (Day 1 of the SAPinsider Las Vegas event) for Gibson Biddle’s Keynote. Registration for the three-day event includes all keynotes, deep dives, breakouts and i20 solution sessions; plus networking and connecting with like-minds. 

You can find out more about the SAPinsider Las Vegas event here.