Euro Disney 100 First Days

Euro Disney: The First 100 Days

Disney's Product and Formula for Delivering It

The Walt Disney Company, founded in 1923, has a wide range of products which, added together, maximize the value of the firm and seek to "create happiness". As stated in the Company Overview, there are four major streams which all add up to a well thought and successful enterprise. Firstly, motion pictures are produced at The Walt Disney Studios, to then be broadcasted, radioed or published by the Media Networks. To complete the circle, Disney Consumer Products merchandise the brand so that children around the Globe can buy all sort of goods related to Disney's characters and the various Parks and Resorts offer a family-day "Where Dreams Come True" (The Walt Disney Company). All these segments, added to the recent venture with Apple and Pixar through Steve Jobs, result in a company with an extremely well-developed and exemplary chain value (See appendix 1).

Disney's formula for delivering the product is one that pursues excellence by exceeding its clients' expectations. In order to do so, not only does the corporate culture give an enormous importance to details, but it also creates an environment in which employees can feel comfortable and are treated as well as they should treat their clients. By doing so, employees, or "cast members", as they are called, will enjoy their jobs and it will become second nature to them to transmit a feeling of happiness to the costumers. However, to get to this stage of connection with the company and the role that each employee has within it, it is necessary to implement training sessions. Thus, The Walt Disney Company has created a Disney University, which is, in my opinion, the base of its core competence: a service that enhances the products features.

Major Elements of Disney's Strategy and Operating Systems in France. Problems Associated.

A major element in Disney's strategy was choosing the appropriate location. Several cities were considered for the Park, but finally only one achieved to host it: Paris. It was mainly chosen because of its central location in Europe, which made it much more accessible to Europeans than, for example, Southern Spain and the construction of the Euro tunnel made it even more reachable. Moreover, Paris is the 3rd most visited city in the World (Brenmer, 2007). Being it, a high number of tourists visiting Paris, did spend part of their time in the park too. The main problem was the lack of responsiveness from locals.

Even though at first the idea was warmly welcomed in the area, or at least research seemed to indicate so, once the park was actually built and running, it wasn't received with much enthusiasm. In my opinion, the fact that the company resorted to having the government expropriate several lands from nearby farmers was of great relevance. The French well-known for liking their liberties and freedom, and having an American company "invading" their lands created a feeling of resentment against the park.

Another element was to keep the park within Disney's Global strategy. As Robert Fitzpatrick stated, they would not "put a beret and a baguette on Mickey Mouse". Keeping the identity of the product and making it recognisable worldwide is a strategy that many successful companies, like Domino's or Starbucks, follow and Disney does too (See appendix 2). However, some adaptations have to be made, especially for an entertainment related product, because the concept of leisure varies enormously among cultures. In this case, although extensive research was made and, in my opinion, they did manage to map the French culture quite successfully, they did not succeed in efficiently bridging both cultures. It is essential to bridge and integrate cultures in order to achieve a high performance that results from an effective use of the differences and this was not done in France. The French felt that the "American way" was being imposed on them and French intellectuals were especially critical of it. A way of preventing this problem would have been to enhance both countries' shared history to gain the favour of French intellectuals. Disney should not have stayed content with emphasizing that their films are based on European tales, but also focus on France specifically. The link between the Revolutions, and the fact that the Statue of Liberty was built as a joint project between both countries would have been a magnificent start point to do so.

A final element in the strategy was the positioning of the park through a high pricing, not only on admission but also on the money that would then be spent money on other items such as hotels, food and souvenirs. By doing so, they pretended to send a message of higher quality. However, Europe was going through a recession in that period, which meant that this aspect of the park wasn't fit to the economical environment of the time. Not being a basic necessity, many people were discouraged from going to the park due to the economic recession.

Reasons for Different Levels of Success in France and Japan

Whereas the Japanese venture was a sound success from