Strategic Action Disney : Business Level 7

The Walt Disney Company has seen their share of success in taking their parks and resorts into global markets. “60 years ago, the first Disney theme park opened, in California and was the brainchild of Walt Disney himself, who was motivated by the lack of entertainment options available to him and his two young daughters.” (Forbes, 2016). Disneyland California penetrated the market rapidly, and its popularity led to the opening of Disney World in Florida, followed by global expansion in Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong. Their latest expansion came in June 2016, on a 963 acres’ site in Shanghai, China (Xu, 2012). After one year in operation, Shanghai Disneyland is outpacing their most optimistic projections, and the park’s

In order for Disney to remain a dominate player within all of its markets, the company must focus on key aspects of its internal environment. Disney must concentrate on aspects such as core competencies, corporate governance, and synergies to assist in forming a sustainable competitive advantage.

Strategic Planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organizations goals and capabilities as well as emerging market conditions and opportunities. Disney's primary strategic objective is to product high-quality content through their entire product mix. The company also had a record financial performance in 2010 led by the Disney movie studio last year was the first in history to make two film that crossed the billion-dollar mark at the global box office Toy Story 3 and Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Another strategic objective that Disney has set is the goal to make experiences more memorable and accessible through innovative technology. The final strategic objective that Disney has focused on is international expansion.

Price was also an issue leading Disney to lower admission prices. When Disney began working on the Hong Kong park, they had learned a few things from the France experience. In Hong Kong culture feng shui is an important aspect. Things must be placed in specific places to promote good flow. Disney took this into account and hired an expert on feng shui to help with the design.

The success of movies and television programs were due to diversity and distribution. It does its own distribution and targets several markets from children to adults. Finally, the Disney character consumer product sector, which includes clothing, home goods, and toys, has been an extremely important asset to the company. For example, by establishing deals such as an agreement with Mattel, Disney was able to manufacture more than 14,000 Disney licensed products. Furthermore, Disney expanded it’s retailing by opening up Disney stores.

According to Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Disney’s corporate strategy for diversification is a combination of three objectives that are to be achieved through the fundamental alignment of the Company’s core business units. The three objectives to be achieved by The Walt Disney Company are (1) creating high-quality family content, (2) exploiting technological innovations to make entertainment experiences more memorable, and (3) expanding internationally. The Walt Disney Company’s three objectives that make up the Company’s corporate strategy are to be achieved through each of the Company’s core business units that are split up in to five divisions (1) media networks, (2) parks and resorts, (3) studio entertainment, (4) consumer product, and (5) interactive media.

1. About Disney Difference and how it will affect the company’s corporate, competitive, and function strategies.

Hong Kong Disneyland has created a culture for their employees with open communication with their managers

Children’s book publishing and consumer products in retail make up another strength of Disney. In 2011 Disney was the largest licensor of character based merchandise in the world (Gamble & Turnipseed 2014), and lastly there is interactive media. This is the

Disney’s target market consists mainly of family-oriented Asian tourists, primarily those from mainland China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. The mainland China accounted for large number of incoming visitors. At the time of Hong Kong Disneyland’s establishment, Hong Kong already enjoyed booming business and tourism sectors, but the government believed that the latter would be invigorated by the creation of a then absent “family tourist” niche. Below are the

Even in the United States, Disneyworld (Florida) and Disneyland (California) vary in there social forces. Cast Members (Disney’s term for employees) in CA are trained to be friendly and greet every guest, while in FL they are trained to only greet guests who seek them out. The political, legal, and regulatory factors again, vary from theme park to theme park. The parks in the United States have more restrictions than say those of Hong Kong, China. In the U.S, minors (age 15-17) are only allowed to work 20 hours a week. In Hong Kong, young persons (ages 15-17) are allowed to work up to 48 hours a week. Regulatory factors such as this differ in each region. The Walt Disney Company Parks and Resorts has quite an extreme variety of natural environments. The weather in Florida for example can get in the 100’s regularly whereas in California it can get as cold as the low 50’s. These weather conditions actually are a big factor in guests determining which park they want to visit. Technology seems to stay consistent between most of the theme parks. In fact, many of the theme parks have some of the same rides at their parks. The global forces actually can create threats to the company. The addition of the newest theme park to the company, Shanghai Disney, took several years to become accepted. This has been common throughout the duration of The Walt Disney Company. Many people vote against a new theme park or resort because of the crowds that it

5. Tokyo’s overwhelming success encouraged Disney to conquer the European market. They felt that they were able to evoke international appeal of the Disney concept and it would not be a hard task to wet their feet in Europe.

In the marketing sense, we speak of identifying the needs and wants of the consumer. The package presented by Disney to the customer met neither of these. Disney cannot control the environment! True success lies in adapting oneself to the surrounding culture, being marketing oriented is finding success in customer satisfaction. Disney fails on both counts.

Identify an episode of strategic change for an organisation of your own choice. How appropriate was the approach to strategic change given the issues faced by the organisation? Critically evaluate the effectiveness of the strategic leadership during the change process. Identify the impact of the change episode upon the key resources and core competencies of your organisation.

Hong Kong was a prime tourist destination for a large number of people from the mainland. Disney focused on people from mainland, the local residents and