disney case study

The Walt Disney Corporation, also known as Disney, is an American conglomerate with diverse investments in the broadcasting and entertainment industries. Disney is one of the leading corporations in the industry in terms of sales. The headquarters of the organization is located in Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Under the name Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, it was founded in 1923 by two brothers. Over the years, the business has grown to be one of the biggest, with significant investment and activities in areas such as theater, music, streaming media, broadcasting, and publishing. The company has made its name in the movie animation industry, in the process becoming a giant player in the overall movie production industry. More so, the company has also established parks and resorts, which has become one of its major nosiness segments of the modern operations. This paper/report addresses issues identified in the provided case study, adopting the role of new CEO, the paper will focus on discussing approaches and strategies to solve identified problems.
Case Summary
The outgoing CEO (Eisner, Michael) has achieved a lot over the last two decades, such as starting of the Disney Channel, acquiring an ABC television and Starwave Web services from Paul Allan as well as starting the Disney Stores and Disneyland Paris. However, Michael’s style of leadership, critical management approach as well as his strong personality led into conflict with key players in the company such as the shareholders, creative partners as well as the board members. Taking up the role of the new incoming CEO the primary focus is to repair the already damaged relationship with Pixar Studios and its CEO Steve Jobs.
Problem Identification
Drawing from the case provided, different issues were identified which requires a solution or acting by the new CEO. These problems/issues include;
• Currently, a number of Disney’s brands are suffering. These include its products and in turn a key decision has to be made on how to stop the downward trend and reverse this to positive performance. In this case, the new CEO has to decide as to which is the best solution, growth, stabilization or retrenching.
• Disney has a multiple entertainment areas which need to be managed, and in turn the question, how should the different sections be managed effectively? Should the CEO establish one mega strategy for all the divisions, or should every section adopts its own strategy. Additionally, does the division managers allowed to make and approve decisions or decision making and control to be run from the headquarters?
• With different lines of production and entertainment areas, which is the primary Disney’s business? Is the company a content dealer, character and story creation, or are they technology related and distribution which needs channels to buy content and distribute to its customers.
• The poor relationship between stakeholders and the management as well as the customers, a case which is hurting business operations of the
Discussion
1. Adoption of Stability Strategy
The primary objective of the CEO is to lead, develop and execute the organization's business strategy with the focus on creating value. The CEO is the leader, manager, decision maker and the link between the board and the customers. With reference to the case scenario provided from Disney, the CEO will be responsible about turning round the primary identified issues above. As the new CEO, the focus would be to establish a lasting solution or remedies to the problems identified.
One of the major roles of a CEO is the development of an effective growth strategy which would enable the organization to work in harmony among its different subsections just like the different section with Disney. In an effort to turn around the poor performance of the company’s products. This in turn will lead to adoption of the best growth strategy. According to Ullah & Ahmad 2017, P.135), the primary objective of a growth strategy is to improve an organization's revenue and overall performance in the business and market world, compared to its competitors. As an organization, can adopt different growth strategy, either internally or externally. The main focus of Disney is to adopt a strategy that would elevate it back to its glory days, and improve the performance further. As the CEO, the stability strategy will be adopted. This approach will enable the organization to focus on the already business lines as well as establish the best level of stability balancing between expansion and internal growth. In addition, the stability strategy will help improve all relevant structures, sectors and relation to the customers. The stability strategy will help in risk averting. Once the business has acquired stability and its performance maintained or improved, the change can be in turn focus on growth strategy. Finally, retrenchment strategy would be implemented in phases, to face out the less productive employee, and in turn remains with the dedicated and focused group, to help in elevating the company to the next level.
2. Managing the Entire Disney
Drawing from Disney’s management strategy, the organization has a grand strategy that is focused on overall growth and stability as well as managing its different brands by adopting an integrative approach. By adopting growth and retrenchment strategies, Disney would benefit with promoting of its products and profit making. In addition, the combination of the two strategies would deliver an integrated model, which would benefit Disney via increased efficiency and effectiveness not to mention cost reduction while at the same time reducing the rate of disruptions caused by animosity between stakeholders, customers and management. The diversity case in Disney, provides different brands that the company needs to maintain at their best. So with the adoption of an integrative model, it would help in managing the brand across the organizations different businesses.
However, with increased competition, the department or section performance will be key towards the overall organizational performance. This in turn implies that, each of sections will be required to have its management strategy derived from the integrated strategy. This would in turn ensure continuity and relational to the overall organizational goals and objectives. With increased competition and demand for effective performance, the need for overall improvement within the sectors is key. As the CEO, the focus would be on maintaining the sectors first, but gradually focus on improving performance. With the integrative strategy, there would be evaluation of performance, hence focusing on the best business approach.
3. Different sections in Disney and the type of business
With reference to the second identified issue with the current status of Disney, taking up the role of CEO, the primary strategy to be implemented is a corporate level strategy. This strategy will entail all strategies that impact the operations of the entire organizations. With the existence of different growth strategies, the focus is to adopt one that stabilizes the entire organization taking into account the primary objective or business aim in which the company was initially established. According to Chinniah (2013, P.9), Disney is an entertainment company, but also owns smaller other companies with different services and products. On the other hand, the mission of Walt Disney Company is “to be one of the world’s leading producers and provider of entertainment and information. Taking up the CEO position, the focus would be to focus on the creative content side of business and avoid distribution. With reference to the case description, Disney had bought Pixar so they would focus on content creation as well as firm story telling which provides a message to the audience in addition to telling a hidden message. With reference to this, content, making is in turn an important venture than animation. This explains why Disney gave Pixar power and role over its animation unit. In summary, by the Disney adopting portfolio of brands in differentiating the content, consumer products and services, the focus is to develop the prominent and the most creative as well as profitable entertainment and experiences related globally.
4. Conflict Management to Improve the Relationship between Key Stakeholders
One of the downsides as identified in the case study is the fact that, there is a negative relation between the stakeholders and the management team. Taking the role of the CEO, the primary objective would be to bring together the key players in the same level and together. Not only would this help in developing a positive environment within the organization, but also will be extended to other branches of the larger Disney organization. In an effort to eradicate the negative image between the stakeholders, the primary strategy implemented, will entail, accommodating, and collaborating strategy. This approach will ensure all stakeholders are brought together in meetings, and together contribute towards decision making, with streamlining of goals and objectives of every party. This will in turn enable the establishment of a successful team.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Having identified key issues with regard to Disney’s case, and after analyzing it, as the CEO the solution that would be commenced by adopting a stability strategy. Since the company has many issues as per now, the primary objective is to bring a sense of stability within the different sectors of the company. This would also help in bringing together the parties in disagreement. On the other hand, the company is in a dismal performance with numerous of its brands in a downtrend. The retrenchment approach would help cut costs and increase revenues. More so, the CEO would undertake the portfolio of the company brands in order to differentiate the content, consumer products and services. On the other hand, the primary focus would be to maintain the integrated management approach in managing the brands across Disney establishments. The approach would derive balanced and a sense of autonomy in the company. Finally, the business would focus entirely on content creation and not distribution. Which would make it more concentrated to what is best for them.
 
References
Ullah, M, & Ahmad, H 2017, 'The Impact of Internal Marketing on the Organizational Performance through Organizational culture Mediation', Abasyn University Journal of Social Sciences, 10, 1, pp. 129-148.
Chinniah, A 2013, 'An Effective Role of an Accounting in Human Resource Management to Increase an Organizational Management and Decision-Making', CLEAR International Journal Of Research In Commerce & Management, 3, 5, pp. 1-17.