Strategic Management of Walt Disney Company

This report analyzes the external environment of Walt Disney Company, its business level strategy, and strategic intent. It includes a PESTLE analysis, Porter's five forces analysis, and differentiation theory. The report also discusses the company's mission and vision statements.

Running Head: Strategic Management 1
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Disney’s External Environment.......................................................................................................3
Disney – A Five Forces Analysis....................................................................................................4
Disney TV: Business level strategy.................................................................................................5
Differentiation Theory.................................................................................................................5
Disney’s strategic Intent..................................................................................................................6
Mission statement........................................................................................................................6
Vision statement...........................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Walt Disney is the well-known company all over the world as it has a variety of media networks
which encompass a huge collection of cable, broadcast, cable and digital business in the two
divisions that is the Disney and ESPN Inc (Watts, 2013). The major services and products of the
company are to provide entertainment channel, film, toys and physical places such as Disney
land. This report will entail the external environment of Disney which would be helpful to know
the position ofthe company and the impact of external factors on the performance of the
company. Five forces analysis would be helpful to get knowledge about a competitor of the
company. Further, this report will explain the business level analysis and Disney Television
strategic intent. The company has business statement that shows the company is to be one of the
foremost producers of the world and providers of entertainment by making use of the portfolio of
brands.
Disney’s External Environment
To elaborate on the external environment of Walt Disney Company, Pestle is an effective tool to
show those factors that impact the company’s performance. Pestle of Disney are defined below:
Political Factor
The role of the political factor has a significant role in deciding the aspects that can influence the
long-term profitability of the company in a certain market or country. The company’s
entertainment diversified is operating in more than a dozen countries that depiction itself to
various kinds of political as well as environmental risks (Hollensen, 2015).
Economical factor

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Saving rates, inflation rates, foreign exchange rates,and economic cycle are covered under a
macro environment that determine the combined demand and investment in an economy. These
factors put a huge impact on the competitive advantages of the company. Furthermore, the GDP
of the state is considered as the major factor that contributesto the business of high profile brands
such as Walt Disney.
Social factor
The social factors entail the nominal trends in society. Indeed, modern societies have a great
preference and they express their high interest in the business companies such as Walt Disney
that make available family entertainment in a fascinated way (Bohas, 2015).
Technological factor
Technology has its consequence in every field of life. Innovation has a significant role for the
company as the brand of the company is horizontal to innovation and has followed the
fashionable trends. The company is more focused on presenting the company’s entertainment in
front of viewers by taking consideration of new technology (Khang, Han, Shin, Jung and Kim,
2016).
Legal factor
Walt Disney has many competitors in the entertainment field. It is required for the company to
keep the focus on the graph of success which can be done by fulfilling all legal issues that pertain
to the state. Now a day’s people have become attentive regarding the legal factors of the
companies. It is the company which is the brand of the high level of the middle class and these
people are highly concerned about the stuff related to the legal (Bohari, Hin, and Fuad, 2017).

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Environmental factor
It has been analyzed that the world has taken swear in creating the beautiful planet that should be
pollution free. To follow this perspective, all international companies are having a significant
role in describing the support to the world. That is why it is required for the company to keep the
focus on supporting campaigns and norms of the world related to environmental factors (Voigt,
Buliga and Michl, 2017).
Disney – A Five Forces Analysis
Walt Disney is a well-established company of entertainment and media of the world that is why
Porter's five forces are required for the company to determine the feature of competition in the
industry of Walt Disney and its charisma.
Competitive rivalry or competition (Strong)
There isa number of companies are present in the market of the entertainment that openly
interpret to firm competition that the company experiences. Along with that, there is an
aggressive company that develops high quality animated films to compete against Disney’s Pixar
Animation Studios (Yunna and Yisheng, 2014).
Bargaining power of buyers or customers (Strong)
It is the factor of the external analysis that recognizes the low switching costs, moderate price
sensitivity, and moderate ability to substitute and their intensities in the form of the contributors
to the firm force of the bargaining power of the company’s customers. It hasapparent that the
role of the low switching costs has the ability to make things easy for the customers so that they

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can transfer from one contributor to other (David, 2011). For instance, customers can make a
decisionto switch from Disney’s movies to other competing firms.
Bargaining power of suppliers (Weak)
Walt Disney Company has a large number of customers which communicate to the weak
strength of the supplier’s bargaining power. For instance, a single supplier has noability to affect
the industry due to the availability of many customers in the competitive market (Sheth and
Sisodia, 2015).
Threat of substitutes or substitution (Moderate)
It has been analyzed that the moderate kind of substitutes sustains the moderate strength of this
force in this external analysis. A high level of variety of the company decreasesthe chance of
switching of customers from Disney to another company (De Mooij, 2013).
Threat of new entrants or new entry (Weak)
It has been found that it would be difficult for other companies to enter this market as they need
to invest capitalization in this field to get succeed in competition and to get the fame they have to
wait for many years.
Disney TV: Business level strategy
Disney has a generis strategy to take a competitive advantage to capitalize its focus on unique
products offered in television world. Company uses this strategy to make its products unique
from those of its competitors. This model of business analysis given by Michael E. Porter
discusses three main strategies that are Differentiation theory, Cost leadership theory, and Focus

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theory. Disney Television uses differentiation theory of this model to make its television
products unique and more effective to take a competitive advantage in the market (Business,
2015).
Differentiation Theory
This theory involves making the products unique and more attractive from those of the other
market competitors. Disney uses the exact nature of television industry to make its television
programs more attractive and different from other competitor’s products. Management efforts
made by the company for its television reflect in its business analysis. In order to make its
differentiation theory work efficiently Disney performs following operations:
 A wide research and development in the innovation for television segment
 Used high quality services to deliver its unique content
 Work on its marketing and sales skills to make the audience understood about the
uniqueness of its television products
Main motive of the company to use this particular strategy is to stay agile with its unique process
of developing new products. Differentiation strategy is the only key element of Disney
television’s success against its competitors in the market. With the help of this theory company
get success in competing against rivalry competitors like Viacom Inc., Sony Corporation,
Comcast Corporation, and Time Warner Inc., which owns the Universal pictures. To compete all
these competitors with a sustainable growth company’s generic strategy focuses on innovation of
product development process to take a sustainable competitive advantage in the market segment.

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Disney’s strategic Intent
International popularity of the company is a result of its strategic management that works on the
company’s mission statement and vision statement. These mission and vision statements of the
company are suitable for sustainable growth of its entertainment market and mass media
industries. In the strategic corporate strategy analysis, it is found that the company focuses on
industry leadership mission. In the similar manner company’s vision indicates its development
towards the leadership of business. In order to make follow its mission and vision statements,
similar to other companies, Disney has a flexibility to adapt new mission and vision according to
the market trends or demands (Williams, 2018).
Mission statement
Official corporate mission statement of the company states that the company develops its
products and services in such an innovative way that they provide a unique entertainment
experiences along with significant profitability to innovate other products for the television
world.
From this strategic intent it is identified that the company statement has the following main
factor in tis television market segment. These factors refer to the conglomerate’s offerings,
which mean the output of the company offered to its target customers.
 It produces content, consumer products and services
 It develops the most innovative, profitable, and creative products
 Entertainment experience is provided along with other relatable products to the world

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Vision statement
With this mission company’s vision statement identifies that the company is developing itself to
lead the industry to provide best entertainment and information. This shows that industry
leadership of the company targets the strategic management (Brown, 2017). This vision also
provides an overview of company’s nature of business. Following factors are included in the
vision of company;
 Targeting world entertainment industry
 Leading providers and producers in the industry
 Providing entertainment as well as information
In order to achieve the mission company used several products which created a benchmark in the
entertainment industry like Disney mouse. This was from the Mickey Mouse and Silly
Symphonies in 1928 to 1934. This unique symbol perfectly promoted the company mission to
achieve the best in the industry.

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Conclusion
It has been concluded that Walt Disney is a famous company whose cartoons have become the
component of every childhood. The company has become famous due to the effective use of the
external environment and the discussion about the external environment has been made in this
report. The services of the company are more effective in comparison of other companies as
customers never get bored and the company makes feel their customers stay happy and cheerful.

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References
Bohari, A.M., Hin, C.W. and Fuad, N., 2017. The competitiveness of the halal food industry in
Malaysia: A SWOT-ICT analysis. Geografia-Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, 9(1).
Bohas, A., 2015. Transnational Firms and the Knowledge Structure: The Case of the Walt
Disney Company. Global Society, 29(1), pp.23-41.
David, F.R., 2011. Strategic management: Concepts and cases. Peaeson/Prentice Hall.
De Mooij, M., 2013. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage
Publications.
Hollensen, S., 2015. Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.
Khang, H., Han, S., Shin, S., Jung, A.R. and Kim, M.J., 2016. A retrospective on the state of
international advertising research in advertising, communication, and marketing journals: 1963–
2014. International Journal of Advertising, 35(3), pp.540-568.
Voigt, K.I., Buliga, O. and Michl, K., 2017. Making People Happy: The Case of the Walt Disney
Company.In Business Model Pioneers (pp. 113-126).Springer International Publishing.
Watts, S., 2013. The magic kingdom: Walt Disney and the American way of life. University of
Missouri Press.
Yunna, W. and Yisheng, Y., 2014. The competition situation analysis of shale gas industry in
China: Applying Porter’s five forces and scenario model. Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Reviews, 40, pp.798-805.

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Sheth, J.N. and Sisodia, R.S., 2015. Does marketing need reform?: Fresh perspectives on the
future. Routledge.
Brown, L. (2017) Walt Disney Company SWOT Analysis & Recommendations, [online].
Available form: http://panmore.com/walt-disney-company-swot-analysis-recommendations
[Accessed on 14/10/2018].
Williams, A. (2018) Walt Disney Company’s Mission Statement & Vision Statement (An
Analysis), [online]. Available from: http://panmore.com/walt-disney-company-mission-
statement-vision-statement-analysis [Accessed on 14/10/2018].
Business, (2015) External Environment of Disney-Felix, [online]. Available from:
http://panmore.com/walt-disney-company-mission-statement-vision-statement-analysis
[Accessed on 14/10/2018].