Disney’s Vision

To be the most relevant kids and family brand, driven by compelling consumer experiences, engaging stories and beloved characters. *Disney creates emotional relationship with customers

Core hallmarks distinguish Disney’s from competitors

1. Storytelling – Story that consumers can relate with real life

2. Innovation – Applying technology into products and services to create best experiences for customers

3. Quality – Values that underlying under Disney brand are community, optimism (brave, independent values for kids Disney’s princess) & decency.

Disney’s responsibility :

To be most admired company in the world – equally admired for the integrity of our people and the way we behave as citizens of the world. As we are for the quality of our exceptional entertainment experiences.

1. Disney acts responsibly & with integrity.

- Conduct business & create product in an ethical manner

Ethical conduct Responsible Content - advertisement Environmental Stewardship Community Engagement Respectful Workplaces

2. Promote happiness & well being of kids and families

Conserve nature Strengthen community Live healthier Think creatively

Disney Corporate Citizenship

Compassion – JB, Hospital wards for kids doing charity; provide enjoyment to the kids

Creativity

Conservation

Disney Strategic Direction - Diversification

-Invest in creativity :Invest in MNE for brand & stories Marvel & Lucasfilm, Organically -Disney’s Infinity,

-Embrace Technology because it creates opportunities : TV everywhere solutions, ESPN’s mobile apps

-Expand Globally : China – English module running in school, India – UTV, Malaysia – Local relevance, Disney’s XD (channel identity)

Corporate Strategy of Disney

The Walt Disney Company is a broadly related diversified related business ranging from theme parks, hotels & resorts, etc. This is because there is a close correspondence between the businesses in terms of how they perform key value chain activities and the resources and capabilities each needs to perform those activities.

The company’s corporate strategy are focusing on :

1. Creating high-quality family content – By acquiring IPs(Pixar, Marvel & Lucasfilm) to enhance the resources and capabilities *(to reach new consumers in new places/ways) of its core animation skills and characters

2. Exploiting technological innovations to make entertainment experiences more memorable – By acquiring Playdom to give the company new gaming capabilities *(acquisition enable Disney to enter gaming industry faster and easier compare to start with initial development because Disney didn’t has the capability).

3. International Expansion – Acquisition of UTV to facilitated its international expansion efforts *(exploiting opportunities in emerging markets).

Sufficient capital to be allocated to its core theme parks & resorts business to sustain its advantages in industry. To capture synergies existing between its business units – Highest grossing films, Cars 2 & POC were featured in

Florida & California themeparks.

Vertically integrated strategic companies expand either backward or forward in the value chain to

operate and make profit from all possible strategic units. Disney adopted this strategy and established its

own operations to build the value chain.

Disney’s different strategic business units were Entertainment and Recreation, Motion pictures and

Home Videos and Consumer Products. All these individual business units were vertically integrated but

related diversified in nature. They either acquired or formed new company to reduce the loss in revenue that

was flowing to some other companies in the value chain. For example in Motion pictures, they started with

movies. Soon they realized the profit was being shared by distributors, so they got into distributions via their

Buena Vista Distributions company. Michael Eisner’s vision was to maximize their profit by identifying the

source of revenue loss and filling the gap. Once successful with distribution, they didn’t stop there. Their

next step was to capture televisions and videocassette market and later TV channels to host Disney movies

and other Disney character’s show. By doing this, they were able to diversify their product. Below is an

example of vertical integration in Disney.

Movies àDistribution ChannelsàVideo CassetteesàTelevisionsàTV Channels

Theme parksàHotelsàShopping ComplexesàNight ClubsàFast Food.

What Disney achieved was not easy for any corporation. There were existing big companies in each

value chain that Disney entered, which means they will have big competitors to compete with at every stage.

Generally companies concentrate on their core business and leave the remaining on existing companies. For

example theme park business were their core business, they could have easily let the hotel business to be

operated by existing big players. But they saw this as an opportunity for them. They were not only able to

survive, but also thrive because of this strategy, which allowed them to share management competencies

between different strategic units, better manage their rivalries by using their own company in value chain, so

that the revenue is not shared by others and transfer competencies between businesses. The success of a TV

cartoon could be used to develop toys or vice-versa. They could also be used in theme parks once they are

popular in TV channels and as a product.

Disney did not enter into different business because they wanted to diversify. They did because they

were all related to entertainment industry. One business unit helped other to generate revenue. By hosting

television shows within their own TV channels, they were doing advertisement for their theme parks and

consumer products. They have good co-ordination between different units and they worked as a company

rather than separate profitable units. That helped increase the revenue from theme parks and Disney

products. Instead of concentrating on individual business units, their management was mature enough to

look at the overall revenue of the company. Their management was competent enough to determine the

source of loss in revenue and enter into such business. By entering into related business, they created a

world by itself in entertainment industry. They had such a strong bonding between their lines of products

that no competitors could compete with them as a combined industry. Though they have individual

competitors in every field like distribution channels, televisions channels and theme parks etc, but together,

Disney has become a behemoth.