Study Case : Walt Disney’s & Dennis Hightower Buku : Managing Change; Case & Concept, Todd D. Jick, McGraw Hill, second edition, p.366 - 378

Disney’s Organization Founded in 1923 by Disney brothers, Walt and Roy, with $500 loan, and had grown by 1987 into an entertainment industry. In 1929, was struck its first customer products with the merchandising Mickey Mouse pencil tablet. Subsequently, the Disney Consumer Product (DCP) divisions was established to manage the licensing of Walt Disney name and the company characters, song, music and visual, literary properties.

The Disney Organization In Europe DCP became involved with international licensing. In 1934, Walt Disney personally visited Italy to initiate a licensing business with Italian publisher. By 1987, DCP had 8 wholly owned European subsidiaries that operated in 20 different markets and together employed 102 employee.

The European Headquarters Disney’s market penetration in Europe had lagged behind from USA. But Disney management foresaw a great opportunities opening in Europe during 1990’s. To take full advantage of emerging marketing opportunities, it was decided that a European headquarter to DCP would established in Paris. Everything concerning the 8 country subsidiaries would now be run by Paris. A new position was created, vice president of DCP Europe, will be the head of the office. In June 1987, Dennis Hightower was appointed to that position.

Accepting The Challenge Dennis Hightower, with military background had receive the challenge to figure out where Disney would be in 1992 and what change would entail. As he contemplated his newly job, he thought wryly “ “if you don’t know where you going, any road will take you there”

Taking Publishing Beyond Licensing Starting in Italy, July 1988, Hightower had begun to move beyond pure licensing into publishing business. Because as licensor, you earn regular royalty but you are never a core business to your licensee. Hightower think its time to take greater responsibility and risk. Over time, Disney’s European publishing operations became a mosaic of licensing in the UK, Germany and others in Europe.

Integrating European Operations In 1988, Hightower centralized European contract administration and auditing. Country managers had to focus in revenue production, the back office will conduct by Hightower. He also established marketing and creative services divisions in regional office to offer common resources and coordinate activities of countries and licensees. He also enter into “mega-deals” with selected partner companies spanning multiple countries like Matel for toys, Nestle for food products etc.

Worldwide Operations After consolidating European operations into single region in 1987, Barton K (a worldwide head of DCP) established 3 others regions; Asia Pacific, US-Canada and Asia Pacific.

Hightower Management Approach First carefully evaluates a situation to sets a goal. Fairness and honest with his subordinated Loyalty for subordinated This combination give Dennis a ability to lead a diverse cultural groups. Trust to subordinates.

Reorganizing The Regional Office In 1992, Hightower made a several organizational and personnel change. The creative division at regional office which never run economically was split became independent publishing division for responsible for coordinating business with the country publishing operations. Change finance and marketing head by Internal European executives. Bringing the country operations closer together for generated enormous synergies.

The Apparel Business The Apparel was the company’s largest merchandise category in revenue terms, contributing more than 30 % to retail sales of all Disney licensed product. Before Hightower arrival, anybody could sell Disney apparel by paying fee. Now Dennis charged a regional office team by developing an apparel strategy. This strategy make Europe wide sales gone up 24% since the introduction of the Pan European policy. And growth retail business from $ 650 million in 1987 to $3.5 billion in 1993.