Assignment

Internal Analysis – Walt Disney Company

Introduction

With the world going through multiple changes in regards to economic stability, most people don’t think about the luxury of a vacation or fun. Most will put whatever additional money they find into bills or put it away in their children’s college funds. Trips and additional entertainment come to a stop in most households, but in some, they still have a place. In order to make it happen families have to save and sacrifice along the way to ensure they have appropriated funds to not just paying for accommodations and airfare, but fun at the park as well as additional attractions they may want to see. When you think of Walt Disney Company you may only think of Walt Disney World, Walt Disney Land, and Disney Cruise Lines, but there is much more to Walt Disney Company. There are television shows, movies, music, books, and even magazine publications. “The Walt Disney Company is a leading international entertainment and media enterprise founded in U.S. It operates five separate Disney segments: Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, The Walt Disney Studios, Disney Consumer Products and Disney Interactive.” (Jurevicius, 2013) They have many sides so the business is continually making profits, if a lose comes they are able to bounce back quickly by reinventing that side of the business, selling it or just taking the loss and creating something new. Walt Disney Company is very diverse in its holdings as well as sources of revenue they are able to generate at once.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths. Walt Disney Company has a great deal of strengths to complement their company portfolio. The main strength Walt Disney Company has is the characters they have produced over the years. “Mickey mouse, Goofy, Donald duck, Ariel, and many others are the assets of Walt Disney and are the most humongous revenue generators.” (Bhasin, 2016) Since this is the main staple of the business and would not have survived without it. The next strength is their value. Disney has a long standing history of high standing ethics and values. They have large amount of business ventures that the company chooses to continually invest in and create. Each venture holds hearts of children and adults alike. “However, Disney as a brand has maintained the values which can be learned by kids and these values are also the one which us adults look for in our kids. And because of Disney our kids are learning those values.” (Bhasin, 2016) A third strength is their ability to have diversified businesses. The business has the ability to operate on or offline and has the ability to create additional businesses. “The business operates five different business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio environment, consumer products and interactive media.” (Jurevicius, 2013) This allows them to be less affected by external changes than their competitors. Lastly, strength is localization of products. They have found a way to attract more visitors in the Chinese market through their movies and consumer products. This is a strength that sets them apart from their competitors because very few studios have created this experience.

Weaknesses. There are several weaknesses that Walt Disney Company has. The first one is heavy dependence on income from North America. Disney is currently operating in over 200 countries and depends a great deal on the US and Canada to make income. Over 70% of Walt Disney’s business comes strictly from the United States, and their competitor New Corporation is receiving less than 50% of their revenues from the United States. Their next weakens is the fact they have a limited target audience. Children are the largest audience for adult life. They do not drive revenue their parents do. Walt Disney has limited their audience due to their output of information is targeted toward children. Lastly, there are few opportunities for significant growth through acquisitions. “The Walt Disney Company is the largest entertainment provider in the world and has become so due to acquisition of competitors.” (Jurevicius, 2013) They do very few acquisitions than their competitors. “This means that the size of the Disney’s business has become a concern for the government due to significant market concentration and that the company has very few opportunities to acquire competitors.” (Jurevicius, 2013)

Opportunities. Walt Disney should grasp the opportunity in regards to growth of emerging economies in paid television industries. 50% of Walt Disney’s market share was attributed to the Asia Pacific market. They have the same expected growth in 2016, and China expects to grow over 25%. A second opportunity is having Walt Disney’s extending their abilities to grow in developing countries. Disney is looking to extend their presence in other countries like India, China, and maybe in Australia. This would be a great addition to any country that is trying to improve their presence and economy through the addition of a Disney Land.

Threats. Walt Disney has a large operating cost due to a growing Human Resources expense. This has the potential to go deep on Disney’s bottom line. They is a large number of human resources to operate their land based operations as well as ESPN due to their competitive nature. They are also face with intense competition. “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.” (Jurevicius, 2013) The parks that they operate are in high competition with local vendors. There is an increasing amount of piracy. There is an increasing level of users from the internet stealing information in regards to movies, DVDs, and movies. Due to individuals selling illegal movies this is a major dip in some respects in the company’s finances.

Conclusion

Walt Disney Company is a business that is a model for other businesses. They have many business units that have the ability to generate large amounts of revenue. With an estimated net worth of over $85 billion dollars, Walt Disney has diversified its interests to continually provide profit to the business. If Disney can place some focus on the threats and weaknesses they face, it will give them more opportunities to expand into an even more explosive company. The expansion into developing countries will allow them to really grow and expose countries to their many ventures to experience the happiest place on earth. “Disneyland, Walt Disney and their characters have given so much happiness in the last few decades that people have forgotten that they are also a profit making organization.” (Bhasin, 2016) The internal analysis is truly one that is remarkable because in every ounce of research shows their strengths and opportunities out weight their threats and weaknesses. Walt Disney is a strategic business and is a model to business striving to attain greatness as they make their good their better and their better their best. Wat Disney is an extremely competitive business that offers high level fun and enjoyment for anyone that is willing to visit or invest in their products. They will continue to be a major supplier of joy, and this will allow them to continually provide an experience unlike any other.

References

Bhasin, Hitesh. SWOT of Walt Disney. August 6, 2016. Retrieved http://www.marketing91.com/swot-walt-disney/

Jurevicius, Ovidijus. SWOT Analysis of Walt Disney. February 16, 2013. Retrieved https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/walt-disney-swot-analysis.html

Market Daily news. (2013). The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS): A Fairy Tale Growth Story. Available at: http://marketdailynews.com/2013/05/20/the-walt-disney-company-nysedis-a-fairy-tale-growth-story/

The Walt Disney Company (2013). About Disney. Available at: http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about-disney