I must have original WORK with up to date REFERENCES and this assignment continue from assignment 1 that is attached. Assignment 2: Employee Development and PerformanceDue Week 6 and worth 170 points

Running head: WALT DISNEY STRATEGIES 0

Walt Disney Strategies

Phyllis Spears Jones

Strayer University

HRM599: Human Resource Management Capstone

April 22, 2020

Dr. Lorenzo Wash

Walt Disney Strategies

Introduction

This report analyzes several findings in strategy, organization conduct, and recommendations that should be adopted for the extensive growth of Walt Disney Company. The company has been dominated the entertainment in the four consumer markets that include; media networks, studio and networks, resorts and theme parks, and consumer products. It discusses the strategic plan of Disney Corporation in terms of segmentation, promotion, pricing, positioning, and channeling. This report expands deeper to analyze cost leadership, focus/niche, and differentiation to identify the most appropriate strategy for Walt Disney Co. The recommendations outlined at the end of this paper shall enable Walt Disney to prepare in dealing with the existing threats and address threats that may arise in the future.

Analysis of Walt Disney strategies

Three principles of Porter’s model are used in Walt Disney multinational firm to realize the objective goals. These include cost leadership, focus/niche, and differentiation, as presented in the following discussion.

The cost leadership strategy

The principle aim of applying cot leadership is to sustain market dominance through value chain control. This strategy allows the company to enlarge market share and targeting people with a middle-class purchasing power, which creates the most substantial component of the general market mix in the majority of nations. Consumers in the middle class emphasize on cost leadership and the pricing factor to accommodate the needs of the consumers. Walt Disney centers on the easy availability and affordability of its products and services, leading to sales growth and increased brand awareness, which gives the company a competitive advantage. Apart from the low prices that they offer by maximizing supply and reducing the production cost, Disney Co. offers frequent discounts as well as coupons to contain the competitive pressure and achieve the projected sales. The projected outcomes of the discounts and promotional drives are to encourage consumption and improve the popularity of the brand. Cost leadership at Walt Disney has delivered significant benefits presented by generic strategies such as encourage use, brand recognition, achieve sales targets, and expand customer basis by emphasizing accessibility and affordability of products.

Differentiation

Differentiation is a generic strategy commonly used to strengthen the brand and give the company a competitive edge. Embracing the differentiation strategy allows Walt Disney to increase the customer base through the creation and development of different products with unique features. The strategic plan of using differentiation is to integrate innovation and address the changing needs and health concerns of its consumers. For instance, Walt Disney introduced product segmentation after exploring the changing interests of customers to broaden its scope of opportunities and establish its uniqueness in the competitive industries it operates in. The use of differentiation is one of the main reasons why companies are able to popularize their brands and develop a loyal consumer base. The generic strategy inherent in distinction has enabled Walt Disney to stand out as a unique brand offering a wide variety. Differentiation also allows the company to contain the market pressure produced by other organizations; advertisement, celebrity endorsement, and investing in marketing differentiates Walt Disney from other brands (Jørgensen et al., 2014). The extensive experience, strong presence, and a famous brand are the differentiation parameters highlighted in the communication plan and company’s marketing of Walt Disney. Besides, the brand symbol is a component of the differentiation because the uniqueness of Disney’s logo has generated a gig image in the mind of many consumers. Despite the logo going through numerous revisions, the vibrancy has improved to serve as an important differentiating factor. Furthermore, the corporate offers different flavors to realize the unique needs of the customers. The company uses creative thinking and innovation to offer differentiated augmented products and services that increase customer’s preferences over other trademarks.

Focus or niche strategy

The focus strategy encourages organizations to exploit their resources and emphasize expanding in the narrowly selected segments. Companies based on the focus strategy serve a specific market segment while basing their competitive edge on a niche method of marketing. Using the niche strategy, companies concentrate on offering the best value and low cost. The low-cost niche is implemented by serving the market needs at the lowest price possible. The value-focus strategy is implemented by emphasizing the design, taste, and size of the product that best matches the customer need of a particular niche. By specializing in unique product quality, a company improves its branding processes and achieves a constant change in the design and package of a product to maximize value and satisfy the psychological expectations of the corresponding customers.

The most appropriate strategy for Walt Disney

The most suitable strategy for Walt Disney is to implement a combination of differentiation and cost leadership to realize an efficiency-minded business. In Porter’s model, failing to adopt either differentiation or cost leadership limits the competitive advantage over other brands. However, there is a middle plan that integrates both strategies to expand the competitive advantage of a firm. Choosing the combination of intensive growth and generic strategies based on market conditions determines the success of an enterprise. Recent research suggests that the risks and prices related to intensive growth strategy depend on the generic growth policies. Different human resource practices positively influence a firm’s competitive advantage. Differentiation strategy is more explosive in the attainment of competitive advantage. Thus, HR practices should be used to establish an HR system that is integrated with differentiation to achieve a sustainable advantage in the marketplace. Schuler and Jackson (2016) studied the determinants of HR priorities and implications. They argued that companies that pursue a differentiation strategy focus more on HR innovation as opposed to firms pursuing cost leadership. The study is coherent with Neal (2005), who studied the effectiveness of HR practices on a firm’s competitive strategy. The conceptions of internal fit and external fit ascertain that coherence between productivity and HR practices is stronger for an organization using the differentiation strategy. Therefore, it is a differentiation strategy that would moderate the relationship between competitive advantage and the human resource practices for Walt Disney Corporation.

Employees

Disney had employed 178, 378 employees by 2019, of whom 114,566 were full-time, 38536 were part-time, and the rest were seasonal contractual employees (Sial, Usman, Zufiqar, Satti, & Khursheed, 2013). Another survey on those employees reported that most employees were highly satisfied with their roles because of the big brand represented by the company, an outstanding corporate culture, the challenge of taking responsibility, and the provision of resources and technology to assist them in executing their duties. The majority of tools given to the employees were obtained from the training sessions. The company offers diverse development skills, talent planning, and career development workshops at Disney University. Employees are an important resource to Walt Disney Company. Therefore, the talent acquisition plan should be well established to address the challenges and constraints faced while recruiting employees. These issues are addressed in the following section:

Challenges faced when recruiting employees

Selecting the most appropriate employees who adapt to the organization's culture and serve the intended duties and responsibilities is a critical challenge in the modern workforce. The following are the two principal challenges faced by Walt Disney Company:

Understanding and applying analytics in an effective way

HR professionals fail to understand big data analytics. According to Sandlin and Garlen (2017), being able to collect and sort data through the HR information system can be a challenge for human resource managers. Making informed decisions using the available data can be extraordinarily complex. During the selection of new employees, the HR managers are unable to apply analytics to be able to hire an employee with the relevant capabilities to serve the available purpose. They end up hiring employees without a complete understanding of the job and ultimately end up with poor performance. This may sometimes force the company to end the contract with some employees, which means that the cost of hiring increases.

Hiring employees who suit the organization culture

New employees need to integrate into the workforce and adapt to the organization's environment. Finding workers who can adapt quickly to the organization culture has been the most prominent recruiting challenge in many top organizations. New employees are supposed to create a rapport with the existing employees, adapt to their responsibilities, familiarize with the mission, vision, and values of an organization, and also bring a quick impact to the organization.

Advice to the organization

To address the challenge of understanding and applying data analytics, the HR managers should incorporate data analytics either using solution vendors or analytics experts to converse with meanings of presented data types and various means of exploiting data. Afterward, recruiting teams can develop cheat-sheets that can assist them in understanding and validating information to be used during recruitment processes. This data may include the projected sales of an organization, risk analysis, and the five forces analysis. For the organization to hire employees who adapt to the organization culture, the HR managers should specify the culture of the business in the job description transcripts. Elaboration on the mission and vision and other internal factors of the organization helps applicants to have a prior understanding of how the organization works, which ensures that they adapt well to the roles they apply for.

Developing an effective selection process

To develop an effective recruitment process, the HR managers should understand the vacant job to be able to understand the personalities that will have a positive impact on the vacant post. As an HR professional, you can conduct an internal analysis of the job or in cooperation with experts with excellent knowledge of the field. Furthermore, an HR manager should monitor the selection processes to enhance pass rates, fairness, efficiency, and accuracy. Recruiters should also keep track of the evolving selection processes to keep improving the process and give the company the advantage of having a proficient workforce than competitors.

References

Jørgensen, R., Munk-Jørgensen, P., Lysaker, P. H., Buck, K. D., Hansson, L., & Zoffmann, V. (2014). Overcoming recruitment barriers revealed high readiness to participate and the low dropout rate among people with schizophrenia in a randomized controlled trial testing the effect of a Guided Self-Determination intervention. BMC psychiatry, 14(1), 28.

Sandlin, J. A., & Garlen, J. C. (2017). Magic everywhere: Mapping the Disney curriculum. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 39(2), 190-219.

Sial, A., Usman, M. K., Zufiqar, S., Satti, A. M., & Khursheed, I. (2013). Why do public sector organizations fail in the implementation of the strategic plan in Pakistan. Public Policy and Administration Journal, 3(1), 33-41.