Advantages and Disadvantages of Licensing as a Mode of Entry Into Foreign Markets

Longer copyright terms can prove beneficial for large mass media companies as evidenced by The Walt Disney Company’s lobbying for the Copyright Term Extension Act. This act, often dubbed the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, extended copyright protection for an additional twenty years in 1998. Consequently, Mickey Mouse is now set to enter the public domain on January 1, 2024. Disney will once again have the opportunity to lobby for extension and evade Mickey’s copyright expiration, thus preventing its most iconic character from entering the public domain. This holds pressing significance because lobbying for further extension legislation would likely occur within the next few years.

Exporting, licensing, and using trading companies are preferred modes of international market entry for firms with a(n) ____ structure.

xx. Walt Disney has developed the ability to internationalize their brand through diversification in entertainment and products for different cultures.

|Innovating ideas on downloaded music’s popularity with consumers |Extremely fast demand for new games |

Globalization. Walt Disney Products and Services are found all over the world in different forms and areas. Disney has focused on growth internationally in the last few years. As a global brand, Walt Disney International provides oversight of the company’s

As firms attempt to internationalize, they may be tempted to locate their facilities where product liability laws are lax in testing new products. Describe some examples in which this motivation is the driving force behind international expansion.

Indirect exporting is when a company sells their product to a third party that will then sell that product to customers in foreign countries (2012). Strengths for this type of strategy are there is little financial commitment, the financial risk is reduced by using the third party, and there is a reduced risk that the future of the product or brand will look bad in the new market (2012). A limitation of this entrance strategy are the company has to rely on the third party to get customers and negotiate the sale prices for them (2012). Direct exporting is when the firm that is entering the market enters on its own and handles their own exports (2012). Strengths of this strategy are the company gets to handle their own exports, they have complete control, the company also has a greater amount of potential returns, and they can maintain a greater profit from their sales (2012). Limitations of this are there is a higher risk involved since the company is handling its own foreign markets, and there is a larger investment in not only money but time (2012). Licensing is when there is a relatively low link to risk that permits the company to enter into the market (2012). The strengths associated with licensing are no large capital investment, the company may be able to get around the restrictions and barriers a country can put up, and the company can charge a higher price for their product (2012). Limitations of licensing are

Globalization is forcing all companies, large and small, to focus on a larger competitive landscape. For many companies hypercompetition arises and they are left with stunted growth while competing with other businesses across the globe. Fortunately, Disney has constructed one of the world’s most recognizable and beloved brands in the entire world. To understand the external environment in which Disney competes, we must first discern which market we wish to analyze. Disney owns a plethora of companies across an extensive list of industries including publishing, game production, retail, theme parks, and software. By far the two largest segments of Disney’s business are its parks/resorts and media networks; those will be

He also correctly predicted that television would be an important medium, and introduced the highly popular “Mickey Mouse Club” in 1955. Finally, Disney correctly bet big on entering theme parks with Disneyland in 1955. Imperfect Mobility and Co-specialization Disney’s strong legal protection makes it nearly impossible for competitors to copy or imitate Disney’s characters. In addition, the parts comprising the Disney whole would be of less valuable to a poacher than they are to Disney. This is because, for Disney, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. In a word, synergy. Even if a competitor succeeded in hiring away key talent, for example, the competitor would still lack the tradition, culture, and complementary assets that make up Disney. Synergy Disney has mastered the art of the cross-sell. It has done so by leveraging its characters and carefully controlling its image, driving toward a unified, highly valued customer experience. An example best illustrates this. Consider a typical multi-day family trip to Disney World. A family books lodging months in advance at a hotel inside the park. It does so because it knows that the hotel has the best location, is highly demanded, and will provide good hospitality. Being lodged inside the park, the family eats at Disney-owned restaurants and perhaps buys Disney merchandise. All the while the family willing

Market entry risks such as cultural differences, competitors, legislation, transportation issues, infringement of intellectual property rights and copyright.

Disney operates in very competitive industries such as media, tourism, parks and resorts, interactive entertainment and others. The competitive landscape changes quite drastically in the media industry, where news and TV go online and new competitors with new business models compete more successfully than incumbent media companies. Disney’s parks and resorts business segment also receives strong competition from local competitors who can offer better-adapted product. This results in growing competitive pressure for Walt Disney Company (Ovidijus Jurevicius).

In the future, licensing will keep increasing and its percentage of revenue will grow, especially if the management adopts a strategy of capitalizing on it.

There must be a balance between the developer of the intellectual property and the interest of the public. Intellectual property is already a big business among companies. Expanding the monopolies has the effect of allowing companies to negotiate and cross-licensing technology. Microsoft, as recently reported on the Wall Street Journal, is looking to expand the licensing of its technologies, after successfully licensing some video decoders to open source groups.

Companies can decide to go global or to enter international markets for various reasons, and these different objectives at the time of entry that enable the business to produce different strategies and the performance goals, and even forms of market participation.

First the licensing may result in a firm's giving away its know-how that is giving away his competitive advantage to the competitor in the foreign market. Suppose Ford gives license to AvtoVAZ, one of the large Russian manufacture then it can start its own car manufacturing using Ford's know how. Second disadvantage is providing the license to the company there is no tight control over the subsidiary firm in foreign market. Ford wants to exploits the opportunity that it has in Russia by its own way. Licensee may not follow all instruction of Ford. The last problem with the giving license is that some terms of know-how can not be defined on a page or documented. Like service industry (Hospitality industry) that how to license the subsidiary for "how to well come and how to greet" as a part of the service.(Hill, 2003,p-215).