The Walt Disney Company deals with media animation, television, travel,tour and film production. Increased revenue margins have also been realized from its online media, music industry, theater and publications. Walt Disney’s major revenue generation channels include ESPN, A+E Networks, Disney Channel, Marvel, Walt Disney Studios and ABC Family (Ingersoll, 2005; Franz & Smulyan, 2011).
The Walt Disney Company has a strong mission that is founded on the need to enhance creativity and innovativeness. The company’s mission is to ensure that it remains the global “leading producer” of leisurely entertainment and information. The company aims to “make people happy”. Improving financial growth is the core focus of the Walt Disney Company. The Walt Disney Company’s vision is to foster innovation and utilize the latest existing technologies in venturing into new entertainment markets across the globe (Franz & Smulyan, 2011).
In line with its mission and vision, Walt Disney’s core objective is to be a global leader in the production and provision of information and entertainment by use of a wide scope of entertainment brands that aim at differentiating its products, services and media content from those of its competitors. Financially, the company’s objective is to maximize its cash flow and earnings while allocating capital to its growth strategies so as to boost its long-term investor value (Ingersoll, 2005).
In the 2011 fiscal year, Walt Disney’s net income was $4.8 billion. This value was a 21% increase compared to its 2010 financial performance. In the same year, the company’s revenue rose to $40.9 billion. The value was a 7% increase from the previous year’s financial performance. Its human resource systems focus on talent acquisition and retention, according fair compensation to employees, enhancing global mobility, fair labor relations, encouraging creativity and innovativeness and encouraging career growth and development.
Objectives for improving the organization’s financial position
One of the objectives for improving Walt Disney’s financial position is to finance its costly technological ventures in the entertainment industry. Sports programming remains to be the core focus of the Walt Disney Company (Franz & Smulyan, 2011). To effectively finance this costly technological venture in the dynamic entertainment industry, improvement of Walt Disney’s financial position cannot be ignored. The second reason for the improvement of the organization’s financial position is to enable the Walt Disney Company to venture into the unexploited markets. The unexploited markets include China’s 1.3 billion people who form an ever growing entertainment market and many developing countries. Its performance measure is to increase productivity based on the revenue generated. The third objective for improving Walt Disney’s financial position is aimed at providing profitable and affordable entertainment experiences to clients. While venturing into new markets by use of the modern technologies is crucial, the Walt Disney Company’s top management understands the need to provide affordable entertainment strategies to low income earners.
Performance measures and expected level of performance
The success of the Walt Disney Company lies in effectively and financing its costly technological ventures in the entertainment industry. The success can be deemed to have been achieved based on a number of factors. One of the measures is based on financing both the new and existing entertainment ventures. The increase in the number of new inventions can also reveal the achievement of this objective. The target of the performance is to increase productivity while remaining technologically relevant (Greenhalgh, 2004). On the other hand, this objective demands serious creativity in the company’s use of modern information technologies and systems. Additionally, the approach requires top level managers to realign the company’s operational strategies to the core business principles that focus on achieving the vision and mission of the organization from a financial perspective.
The measure for the second objective would be reaching new markets and the increase in revenue for the company. Less financial strain on new ventures can also reveal the achievement of this objective (Ingersoll, 2005). Faster penetration of the new markets would require the use of streamlined marketing and advertisement mechanisms aimed at promoting Walt Disney as the most affordable, reliable and cost effective provider of entertainment opportunities (Franz & Smulyan, 2011).
The measure of the achievement of successful provision of profitable yet affordable entertainment experiences to low income earners is a steady increase in the number of low income earners. There can also be an overall increase in clients’ entertainment base and acceptance of Walt Disney’s entertainment products to new markets due to the affordability of the company’s products. Creativity and innovativeness are the major standards of performance for the company at this level. Another target of this objective is to double its current customer base. Increased revenue aimed at catering for the high cost of operation, innovation and creativity is evident from the fact that in recent times, Walt Disney’s revenue has grown from $40.9 billion shillings to $42.3 billion USD. As a target for the objective, the company aims to achieve an average of $45.0 billion USD revenue by the year 2014.
Actions or programs that need to be developed
The financing of costly technological ventures can be realized by the establishment of innovative mechanisms and programs focused on programming modernized games and other family based entertainment ventures.
To effectively do business in new business environments, the Walt Disney Company’s management should develop an in-depth operational mechanism aimed at researching on the visibility of new markets. The research programs should focus on understanding market dynamics and possible challenges that can be faced in new markets. To ensure that affordable prices for some of the innovative entertainment products are realized, it is crucial for the organization to focus on minimizing its overall production and provision of leisurely information and entertainment offered by the company (Greenhalgh, 2004).
References
Franz, K. & Smulyan, S. (2011). Major Problems in American Popular Culture: Documents and Essays.Connecticut, USA: Cengage Learning.
Greenhalgh, C. (2004). Building a Strategic Balanced Scorecard: Saatchi & Saatchi Complementary Case.Liverpool, UK: University of Liverpool.
Ingersoll, D. S. (2005). Plan Your Walt Disney World Vacation in No time, fast, easy, simple.USA: Que Publishing.