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Disney Case
Stakeholder Communications
Disney's American project ultimately never manifested due to a slew of different reasons. However, one of the most fundamental breakdowns in the process was definitely stakeholder communications. The project had a lot of support from many people in the community. The project would have resulted in the creation of many local jobs and been an enormous driver of economic activity for the local community. Furthermore, it was Disney's vision that the theme park would be even more extraordinary source of pride for the American population in general. Not everyone shared this vision however. James McPherson, Princeton professor, believed that the site was too significant historically to be trivialized and commercialized by Disney.
The project's failure was due to the miscommunication with key stakeholders in the planning phase. It is likely that if Disney communicated better with these stakeholders early on in the project, then the project could have progressed as opposed to dying out. An effective stakeholder communication plan would have likely exposed many risks that the project faced early on. If these critical risks were identified in the planning phase, then they likely could have been mitigated. Some of the critical risks that the case alludes to include:
The name of the project...
It is common for projects fail because of poor communication either amongst the project team or with communication with stakeholders. In Disney's case, the communication plan should have identified all of the key stakeholders early on and brought them on as a consultant during the planning phase. The feedback generated from these stakeholders could have helped to identify the risks the project faced more effectively. Since projects, by their very definition, deal with a unique circumstance then they are plagued by risk inherently (Benta, 2011).
There are many best practices for risk identification and probabilistic analysis, however there have only been recent developments in regards to adding an estimated cost for the contingency plan (Hollmann, 2009). If Disney had a better understanding about the risks that the project faced, then they could have create risk mitigation and contingency plans that actually included a cost benefit analysis. For example, if Disney would identified the key risk factors then they could have considered multiple locations and had different options readily available. This would…
References
Benta, D. (2011). On Best Practices for Risk Management in Complex Projects. Informatica Economica, 142-152.
Hollmann, J. (2009). Recommended Practices for Risk Analysis and Cost Contingency Estimating. AACE International Transactions, 1-14.
(Wikipedia, 1) Disney was emboldened in this strategy by the prototype in Japan, though we may now suggest that this effort was significantly aided by the greater interest of the Japanese in Western culture than many in Western Europe. Indeed, the Tokyo site would face few legal barriers, and would succeed momentously with little alteration of its American models required. Here, evidence of a closeness between Japan and the
The confidence of Disney was to some extent based on the number of Europeans visiting U.S. Disney parks. The Europeans would be visiting the parks based in U.S. As they were in America but not going to America with the specific motive to pay a visit to the parks. Therefore these figures do not exactly show the popularity of Disney theme parks in Europe. The American Disney Parks are
The level of the investment also isolated them more in the case of a failure. They paid attention to the wrong details. Disney acted on American views of Europe rather than on native views, which could identify the important cultural differences. It appeared that the managers were too confident in their success to research the small details about European cultures. In planning Euro Disney there were not any contingency plans
According to Kepler Equities, there will be a 5% average growth in sales over the next five years for EuroDisney as a result, and breakeven is considered to be achievable in the 2012 timeframe. While EuroDisney can't compete with a strong British Pound and Euro relative to the weak American dollar, they can do what Disney does best, and that is bring in the flashy, new rides and entertainment.
When the dentist asked Walt to come over to finalize the deal, Walt had to admit that he did not have the $1.50 to recover his shoes from the local cobbler. The dentist not only came to Walt to hand over $500 for the deal, but also gave him the cobbler's fee. Walt then began work on Alice's Wonderland, in which a child was placed against a cartoon background,
Walt Disney is the epitome of success through perseverance and hard work. The animator, filmmaker, and entrepreneur once said, "All of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." Disney had dreams that many did not think was possible to come true, and yet he continually proved to the world that anything was possible. The world of magic that we know of today would not