Strategic Initiative Paper

Strategic Initiative Paper

Organizations operate with strategic plans in an effort to help determine where an organization plans are to meet the goals and objectives in long-term planning. To determine what initiatives a company can use to reach the goal, needed to evaluate a strategic plan. The method helps determine the company's performance to achieve a solid plan. An organization can encounter a number of major issues determined by current effects of a changing economy. The planners at Disney will need to provide positive conclusions. By examining a strategic initiative direction can include positive outcome for the organization in preparation to, using a strong financial statement to support an organization. Disney must develop certain strategic planning goals from, from thinking outside the box, companies risk evaluation, action and evaluation, and to reach goals and objectives.

Strategic Planning Initiative

The Walt Disney Company achieves success through four strategic planning principles: dream, believe, dare, and do (Capodagli Jackson Consulting, 2010). The strategic planning principle of dreaming includes trying the impossible and those strategies never tried before. This is the vision or story of The Walt Disney Company. The strategic planning principle of believing includes incorporating the entire team's set of values to ensure success. This is the values that guide the decisions of The Walt Disney Company's management. The strategic planning principle of daring includes not following everyone's footsteps, but creating a new path to provide unique magical moments for the guests of Disney (Capodagli Jackson Consulting, 2010). This is identifying barriers to achieving the vision of the organization. The strategic planning principle of doing includes creating plans and implementing those plans. This is the action to the plan to remove barriers and increase service, market share, and productivity (Capodagli Jackson Consulting, 2010).

Strategic Initiative in Walt Disney's Annual Report

In the Walt Disney Company's 2009 Annual Report, it discussed the company's strategic initiative to produce entertainment experiences based on creative content and exceptional storytelling (The Walt Disney Company, 2010). The Walt Disney Company continually strives to achieve this initiative through its four business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, and consumer products. The Disney Interactive Media Group creates and delivers Disney branded interactive entertainment and informational content across multiple platforms including online, mobile and video game consoles around the globe (The Walt Disney Company, 2010). These media networks help Disney to increase this business line to provide family entertainment programming and safe family-oriented websites.

Advancing its strategy of developing outstanding creative content, Disney has distributed motion pictures not only through the Disney name, but also through several other studio names, such as Touchstone. In 2006, Disney acquired Pixar for its renowned computer animation (The Walt Disney Company, 2010). In 2007, Disney joined forces to form ImageMovers Digital, a new studio devoted to the production of performance capture projects (The Walt Disney Company, 2010).

Disney's consumer products extend the Disney brand to merchandise ranging from apparel, toys, home décor, and books and magazines to interactive games, food and beverages, stationary, electronics, and fine art (The Walt Disney Company, 2010). Disney's Publishing Worldwide is the world's largest publisher of children's books and magazines (The Walt Disney Company, 2010). By extending its merchandise to stores around the world along with the Internet, Disney expands its customer base and achieves its strategic plan of developing outstanding creative content. Disney merchandise relates the magical experience of the parks and resorts to customers so that they can bring those experiences home.

Sales Forecasting a Financial Initiative

One of the main factors in an organizations financial planning initiative is the sales forecast. The company's resources provide an opportunity to collect and assemble facts by helping to project sales revenue from different divisions within the organization used to review a given period. The Walt Disney Company must evaluate and propose sales statistics to develop marketing strategies and media coverage to meet the demands within the upcoming year. Many companies review previous year's sales trends that can often continue to be popular by consumers and stakeholders. New events and previous events could still influence the marketplace.

In the future the theme parks, retail stores, movies and collectible art continue to supply the business name with the dusting of familiarity that influences future sales. With changes in technology the familiar name of "Mickey" or "Walt Disney" continues to present a strong presence both in North America and Worldwide (The Walt Disney Company, 2010). As a result of the company's financial planning the Walt Disney Company could capture trends available in the marketplace to increase sales goals and objectives.

The TMV (time value of money) used to quantify an organizations goal (Keown, Martin, Petty, & Scott, 2005), supports five elements from PV (present value) FV (future value), CMP (number of compounding periods), interest rate, and periodic payment amounts. The organizations that have an understanding of the different factors of information this can help support financial stability within an organization. Some basic concepts chosen by Disney are choosing priorities, commitment building, and guide resources. For strong relationship sustain a stakeholder's vision, support a strong culture to build on the company's vision, empower individuals, build quality in each individual, and remove boundaries.

The Walt Disney Company's Initiative Impacting Costs

Walt Disney's initiative impact costs currently have seen increases and decreases in several of their entities such as their cable network and broadcasting. Walt Disney cable network has experienced operating income, which increased 5% to