Analyze the Strategy of a Company of Your Choice from the Perspective of Any one or Two of the Models or Concepts Introduced in Lectures

Option 2: Analyze the strategy of a company of your choice from the perspective of any one or two of the models or concepts introduced in lectures.

Introduction

        This paper is going to discover background of Disneyland owning by The Walt Disney Company, business strategy has adapted in theme parks and discuss about how they utilized the core competencies as their core advantage. Besides that, there is also covered importance of Disneyland’s service strategy, the way Disney Company established a magical world by using service motto. Then, it also consists of the relationship between employee training and customer satisfaction through interpret the core values reinforced by Disney institute and the social cross cultural problem the Disney Company faced.

Strategy is a term that creates from the Greek strategia with the meaning of ‘generalship’ (Fred Nickols, 2012). Besides, according to Michael Porter (1996), term of strategy regard to competitive position where organization differentiating themselves with competitors in the eyes of consumer, about adding value through activity from those applied by competitors. In order to fulfill market and stakeholder’s needs, strategy is the orientation and scope of an organization to attain advantage in an evolving environment of resources and competences over the long term period (Johnson, Scholes and Whittington, 2008). Similarly, core competence defined as a term of a key skill that the firm possesses that is uncommon and crosses useful or departmental boundaries, in this manner a core competence will combine capacities regularly from various departments (Ahlstrom and Bruton, 2010). A successful international company like Disney possesses variety core competencies which acquires by Walt Disney (Founder of Disney Company) that their distinctive ability cannot be imitated and they know the way to utilize it to their advantage (Ahlstrom and Bruton, 2010). The core competencies of Disney Company unable to copy by their competitors due to Disney Company are constantly innovating by learning and improving.

The first core competence of Walt Disney was animated movies and cartoons. By consolidating engineering and Imagineering of Disney’s company came to unparalleled success with the formation of the first full length animated movie. According to Prahalad and Hamel (1990), core competencies lead to the development of core products. Hence, this accomplishment led to new plans and one of them was open a park, an extraordinary type of park. In Disney theme park or Disneyland, Walt utilized a brand new technology to bring his character to life that he called them as ‘Animatronics’ (Magical Kingdom, 2008). Walt Disney’s core competency is that together with unique storytelling and high quality and service, he created a place which can bring magical experience that none of his competitors could actually duplicate.

‘The Happiest place on Earth’, this is how global describe one of the business segments of The Walt Disney Company which is Disneyland (Haesun Paik, 2010). Other than Disneyland, there are total major five business segment of the company include consumer products, studio entertainment, interactive media and also media networks (The Walt Disney Company Annual Report, 2014). Historically, Disney Theme Park first time opened its gates can be traced back to 60 years ago on July 17, 1955. Walt Disney, the Mickey Mouse creator had transformed a 160 acre grove in Anaheim, California, into a theme park which cost $17 million theme park - Disneyland. The whole construction including designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney himself had only used up to only one year to complete (Gale Group, 2005). Still, Walt Disney Company builds, manages and run the family oriented theme parks and other relaxation attractions all around the world until now.

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(Image 1.0: This has shown the five business segment of Disney Company according by revenue in year 2014.)

According to The Walt Disney Company’s language, their aim is to treat visitors as a guest instead of customer, because of Disneyland core business primarily is to provide services for their guest (Just Disney, 2010). To elaborate service in theme parks is defined as an act of help to assist further to fulfill customer’s satisfaction (Kober, 2009). In addition to that, there are numerous kinds of service standard in every theme park. In term to develop the best service quality, due to this is the significant factor that brings ‘guest’ back to revisit a theme park. For instance, a poor customer service will make customer feel like doesn’t want to return anymore, but conversely the customer will share their good experience to family members and friends when they have been treated well with the service they receive.

As being as a successful theme park can be maintained until now, one of the best strategy Disneyland management had made was establish an institute – Disney Institute, to provide their employees an opportunity to reinforce their knowledge and customer service skills which can improves working environment and condition (Disney Annual Report, 2014).  There are several courses that the Disney institute provided to help keep the customers satisfied such as develop leadership skills, ways to manage people, improves quality service, increase customer loyalty and many other courses (Disney Institute, 2015). Hence, every single employee is required to accomplish training program in order to ensure that everyone is familiar with Disneyland’s culture. For example, ‘We Create Happiness’ was a service vision to remind every employee in the theme park that their core job duty was to make the guests happy no matter what role the employee is (Just Disney, 2010) .

Over time, there is deep affection relationship between Disneyland and Disney Institute until now. Most of the employees in Disneyland are graduated from Disney Institute no matter which management level they are in. In this case, in the ways of sustain and maintain a successful company as well as Disneyland, Disney Institute comes out with three universal assets of a successful business which also known as Disney Chain of Excellence which is also one of core competencies of Disney (Disney, 2015). These business strategies behind Disney’s magical experiences are including leadership excellence, cast excellence and guest satisfaction.

Leadership can be defined as taking actions to create sustained and positive transformation within an organization (Allen, et al., 2008). Based on Disney Institute research, the primarily factor for a successful leader is communication. A great leader will align their personal values and vision with their business and help operationalize them for future. The most effective way to demonstrate these skills is to communicate the shared vision passionately and practice what company stands for (Allen, et al., 2008). In order to cultivate an engaged and collaborative company culture, the leader must offer chance and encourage creativity of his / her employees. Then, it is also important that leader able to provide an environment in which employee feel safe and comfortable for them to share those ideas to each other.  In Disney chain of Excellence, leadership excellence is the first link due to leaders has the responsible to make sure a better quality working environment for their employee.