Swot Analysis of "Walt Disney Co.--1995" written by David J. Collis, Jennifer Montana includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Walt Disney facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Walt Disney Co.--1995 case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Risk management, Strategic planning and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Walt Disney Co.--1995 casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Walt Disney Co.--1995
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Walt Disney Co.--1995 case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Walt Disney, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Walt Disney operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Walt Disney Co.--1995 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Walt Disney Co.--1995 case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Walt Disney
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Walt Disney
Strengths Walt Disney Co.--1995 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Walt Disney in Walt Disney Co.--1995 Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Walt Disney is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Walt Disney in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Walt Disney
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Walt Disney does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Walt Disney Co.--1995 Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Walt Disney in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Walt Disney has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Walt Disney Co.--1995 Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Learning organization
- Walt Disney is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Walt Disney is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Walt Disney Co.--1995 Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Walt Disney are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Walt Disney Co.--1995 firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Walt Disney to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Walt Disney to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Walt Disney in the sector have low bargaining power. Walt Disney Co.--1995 has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Walt Disney to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Walt Disney is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Walt Disney Co.--1995 Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Walt Disney is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Walt Disney Co.--1995 are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Walt Disney is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by David J. Collis, Jennifer Montana can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Weaknesses Walt Disney Co.--1995 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Walt Disney Co.--1995 are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Walt Disney Co.--1995, in the dynamic environment Walt Disney has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Walt Disney has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Walt Disney Co.--1995, it seems that the employees of Walt Disney don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Walt Disney is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Walt Disney, firm in the HBR case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Walt Disney needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Walt Disney Co.--1995 can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Walt Disney is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Walt Disney is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Walt Disney needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Walt Disney to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Walt Disney Co.--1995, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Walt Disney supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Walt Disney Co.--1995, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Walt Disney vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Walt Disney has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Walt Disney even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Walt Disney 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Walt Disney Co.--1995 | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Walt Disney in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Walt Disney to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Walt Disney to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Walt Disney can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Walt Disney can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Walt Disney Co.--1995 suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Walt Disney in the consumer business. Now Walt Disney can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Walt Disney is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Walt Disney Co.--1995 case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Walt Disney to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Walt Disney to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Walt Disney has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Walt Disney to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Walt Disney Co.--1995 case study. Walt Disney can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Walt Disney can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Walt Disney can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Strategy & Execution segment.
Developing new processes and practices
– Walt Disney can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Walt Disney to increase its market reach. Walt Disney will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Threats Walt Disney Co.--1995 External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 are -
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Walt Disney business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Walt Disney Co.--1995, Walt Disney may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Walt Disney is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Walt Disney in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Walt Disney in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Walt Disney with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Walt Disney demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Walt Disney can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 .
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Walt Disney.
Regulatory challenges
– Walt Disney needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Walt Disney has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Walt Disney needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Walt Disney can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Walt Disney Co.--1995 Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Walt Disney Co.--1995 is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Walt Disney Co.--1995 is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Walt Disney needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
