The Walt Disney Company's Organizational Design
The Walt Disney Company’s organizational design enables the successful and maintenance of cooperation through the related processes of various business sections. To add on that, a company’s structure or the corporate structure is the design of the company’s system that links the arrangement component, the pattern of management interactions and the composition of the organization. For The Walt Disney Company, its structure is designed to promote competitive benefits through departmentalization or interdivisional cooperation. For instance, the amusement park or resort segment’s strategy is influenced by the company’s entertainment sector. Such collaboration helps accomplish mission and vision statement of the company, which is ambitious for the leadership of the industry. The design makes sure that the company remains competitive in the global market.
The Company's Approach to Synchronizing Growth
The company employs an organizational design that profits on the competencies of various business segments or divisions. The method inspires managers in synchronizing growth simultaneously among segments and subunits like studio entertainment. For instance, product released simultaneously, in this case, is among the observable managerial approaches. The organization’s structural features help exploit global market opportunities and address the current trends in the industry, thereby supporting strategic growth (Daft 47).
Organizational Structure
The Walt Disney Company has a business multidivisional organizational structure (M-form) focusing on the type of the business. Diversified organizations commonly have this kind of structure. The business multidivisional structure involves linked constrained diversification. For example, interdivisional profits are the main concern in expanding the business, and in implementing the company’s competitive advantage and intensive growth. In addition, the company also has a strong centralization comprising of functional groups in its commercial headquarters (Daft 47). However, this centralization is a structural characteristic that guarantees a stronger managerial control on diversified progression in the global mass media, Fun Park, and entertainment industries. The structure’s main characteristics include; business-type segments, Functional groups for centralization, and Geographical divisions.
Business-Type Divisions
The company’s prime structural characteristic is its business-type divisions. Where the divisions allow concentration on specific industries and business types. For instance, the company has a subunit for its amusement parks and resorts, and another subunit for its entertainment products. In this business structure, the subunits function under a constrained diversification strategy, where these limitations are managed through centralized commercial management. The business-type segments include; Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, Studio Entertainment, Consumer Products, and Interactive Media (Hallowell et al. 73).
Functional Groups for Centralization
The functional groups are structural features responsible for the centralization of strategic management control throughout the international business within an organization. Hence the effective coordination of strategic growth among business-type segments is ensured. Through the control of centralization, Disney’s business headquarters prioritize strategies that profit various segments. An example is that individual actors from Studio Entertainment division (new movie) are used in the company’s resorts and parks division (Disneyland) and interactive media consumer products sector (merchandise). Functional groups make such cooperation possible in this corporate structure as well as addressing competitive rivalry and related forces.
Geographical Divisions
The variations among local, domestic and regional markets are addressed by geographical divisions. These disparities are based on geographic factors that interfere with the entertainment, mass media, and the parks and resorts industries. Therefore, differences among regional sociocultural aspects result in variances in the customers’ preference in the entertainment industry of the company. Hence, the suitability of business strategies comparative to market conditions is ensured by geographical divisions (Daft 47).
Benefits of the Design
The design creates the benefit of support for synergistic diversification. Diversification is one of the company’s strategies for growing its business globally. In order for the company’s business segments to cooperate, there has to be centralized managerial control which the corporate structure also provides. Moreover, the company also benefits from the market-based strategic suitability which the structural attribute of geographical divisions is having. On the other hand, the operations management effectiveness can further be enhanced, for example, effective supply chain management can boost support for the company’s functions in the amusement park industries and consumer products (Hallowell et al. 73).
Challenges of the Design
The M-form structure possesses constraints on related management strategies and diversification which is a great challenge to the company. Centralization through functional groups, on the other hand, hinders the overall degree of business diversification. Additionally, the design also limits product development through branding-associated. For example, brandings which are family-oriented limits diversification which involves adults-only products. Therefore, in order to curb these challenges, a recommendation is the company needs to develop a long-term solution to modify its structure to suit more products that deviate from such family orientation. Further, the company should also modify its centralization constraints to enable further diversification in the international market.
The Company's Mission and Vision Statement
The company aspires to be the top producer and provider of entertainment and information globally. Using their portfolio of brands to differentiate their content, services, and consumer products, it seeks to create the most profitable, innovative and creative entertainment experiences and related products globally (Mann et al. 364).
Goals
Currently, the company’s goals are to reduce their environmental impacts and minimize the rate of used and produced fuel and waste respectively, as this will help it become a top player in the market worldwide for mass media, amusement parks, and entertainment products (Mann et al. 364).
Works Cited
Daft, Richard L. Organization theory and design. Cengage learning, (2015): 47.
Hallowell, Roger, David Bowen, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "THE Airlines, the Walt Disney SUCCESS Company, Wal-Mart, and USAA (among others) is frequently attributed in no small degree to their corporate cultures. These companies have built and maintained organizational cultures in which everyone is focused on delivering high customer value, including service, and individuals behave accordingly. The culture influences how employees behave, which, in turn, shapes the value that customers receive, in part through the thousands of daily encounters between employees ...." Readings and Cases in International Human Resource Management (2016): 73.
Mann, Sara L., and Marie-Hélène Budworth. "15. The happiest place on earth? A case study of the Disney World employment experience." Handbook of Human Resource Management in the Tourism and Hospitality Industries (2018): 364.
