Kyle Thompson
Introduction to Management
Ms. Harkins
2/1/12
The Walt Disney Company
For this assignment I choose the Walt Disney Company http://corporate.disney.go.com/ The Walt Disney Company was founded back in 1923 by Walt and Roy Disney. Walt and Roy had a studio called Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. Walt and Roy established themselves as the leader in the American animation industry with their franchise mascot named Steamboat Willie aka later named Mickey Mouse. Over the years the Disney company expanded its market into live-action film production, television, radio, theatre, publishing, online media and later travel. Since 1986, the Walt Disney Company has created new divisions of the company in order to market more mature content than it typically associates with its flagship family-oriented brands. Disney owns and operates the ABC network, the Disney Channel, ESPN, A & E Television, and the ABC Family channel. In addition to the media side of things, the Walt Disney Company owns 14 theme parks around the world.
In current news the Walt Disney Company will be dedicating their fourth cruise ship (the Disney Dream) in the New York Harbor on March 31st of 2012. This announcement made on January 29th 2012, is years and years of planning and building towards Disney's global market growth strategy. This ship marks the beginning of new tour destinations, sea ports, and different countries in the attempt to further the Disney name and experience. Some of the sites where the ship will leave from are the Bahamas from New York, Canada up the New England coast, Alaska from Seattle, Western Caribbean from Galveston, and Hawaii from Los Angeles.
This cruise ship marks several effective management practices. With so much being thought of what the customer's focus is, the layout and design of the ship encompasses everything the customer wants and needs in a once in a lifetime type of experience. The management at Disney has made the main mission with this new cruise ship to be that the overall creativity and innovation be highlighted to match what the fans have grown to expect from the worldwide leader in animation. Looking upward into the ship's atrium lobby guests can view a chandelier 22 feet wide and 13 feet long this chandelier sparkles with over 88,680 Swarovski crystal beads and a 24kt gold plated design. The stern for the Dream is 14 feet long, weighing 2,500 pounds and was built over 15,000 miles away in Germany. The stern is of Sorcerer Mickey Mouse and is made of stainless steel and fiberglass. Another industry first is Disney Dreams - AquaDuck. The AquaDuck is the very first water coaster on a seaboard vessel.
Working for the Walt Disney Company and in particular the Disney Cruise ships would be a wonderful life experience. With so much culture to explore and different parts of the world to visit just the beginning. A company that runs all of its operations with its consumers in the forefront, makes for a fun and exciting team to be part of. The Walt Disney Company is known for its family-friendly aspect in its management and operations guidelines making for a clean and simple concept that has a proven success record.
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(Sean Gallup, Getty Images)
