Strategic business unit (SBU) under the Corporation Unilever has three strategic business units, (SBC) and they are food and drink, personal care, and home care (Unilever.com). Unilever operates all the units in Pakistan, but with two distinct companies - Unilever Pakistan and Unilever Pakistan Foods. The former manufactures personal care and home care, and the later manufactures food and drink products (Unilever.com). The Unilever Pakistan Foods is in charge of producing products like Energile, Knorr, and Rafhan (Smith & Crawford, 2008). It is evident that the business unit is the largest fast moving consumer goods company within the perimeters of Pakistan. Walt Disney Company's management As a consultant to Walt Disney Company's management, you have been asked to prepare an assessment of the company's diversification/acquisition strategy over the past 30 years, beginning with Michael Eisner's term as CEO in 1984, and continuing to its present business line-up in 2012. 1) Do the present business units exhibit good strategic fit? The Walt Disney company is one of the largest media and entertainment conglomerates, with operations covering four key businesses: Media Networks, Studio Entertainment, Parks and Resorts, Consumer Products. Media Networks: it has two categories, Broadcasting and Cable Networks. Broadcasting units includes the ABC Television Network. Cable Networks includes the ESPN-branded cable networks, Disney Channel, Disney Channel International, stakes in E! Entertainment and Lifetime and the start-up cable operations, such as Toon Disney and SoapNet. Studio Entertainment: The Studio Entertainment segment produces a wide variety of movies, television animation programs, musical recordings and live stage plays. It also engages in the theatrical, home video and television distribution of Disney's film and television library. It includes banners such as Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone, Buena Vista, and Miramax. Parks and Resorts: They are the most popular in the world, including the Walt Disney World resort in Florida (#1 park in US, 15.4 million visitors per year), the Disneyland Park and two hotels in California, and the Disney Cruise line operated out of Port Canaveral, Florida. The segment also generates royalties and/or management fees on revenues from Tokyo Disneyland (16.5 million people per year) and Disneyland Paris. Consumer Products: it licenses the company's characters to consumer manufacturers, retailers, and publishers throughout the world. The company also works in direct retail using The Disney Stores, and produces books and magazines in the US and Europe. The company also produces audio and computer software products, film, video and computer software products for the educational marketplace. 2) What does a 9-cell industry attractiveness/business strength matrix displaying Walt Disney Company's business units look like? The x-axis is labeled as competitive strength/market position and the y-axis represents industry attractiveness. The way I determined the relative size and position of each of Disney's five main business lines mentioned in the case was by first completing a weighted competitive strength score for each of the business lines. Biggest circle = media networks (most % of total revenue) also in the top, highest ranking circle and second largest= parks and resorts (most competitive and most attractive industry) both fall in 3 boxes in top left of matrix. These receive most resources, opportunity to build most shareholder value. \"grow and build. The third largest circle is studio entertainment. This circle would fall into the middle area of the matrix, and receives medium allocation of resources. This one scores a little lower on industry attractiveness due to the decreasing sale of DVD products and the rise of lower cost alternatives. The unit is still somewhat competitive however due to strong intellectual property surrounding the brands. The fourth largest circle is the consumer products unit. This unit is also near the bottom of the middle of the matrix, a lower amount of resources are dedicated to this unit, and competition in consumer products is quite strong. The intellectual property surrounding the Disney name allows products in this category to remain competitive. The final unit, interactive media, falls near the higher end of the bottom 3 matrix squares. This segment is highly competitive and subject to factors ranging from seasonality to the pace of technological advancement. This segment is small and receives the lowest amount of resource allocation, but recent the recent acquisition of Playdom, Inc. could help alleviate the influence of those factors, and pulls this segment in line with the corporate strategy. It could eventually move to the lower end of the middle set of squares on the matrix. 3) Should the present portfolio be kept or should it be adjusted? Walt Disney Company's portfolio includes media (attractive), parks and resorts (attractive), studio (neither attractive nor un attractive), consumer products (unattractive) and interactive media (attractive). Overall the industries represented in Disney's portfolio are attractive. There is a good strategic fit within the Disney portfolio. There is an appropriate blending of nearly every business unit within the portfolio to maximize revenue and competition. The Studio Entertainment unit shares major Motion Picture characters with the Consumer Products unit to sell products to fans of those pictures, as well as to the Interactive Media to promote and sell video games surrounding the plots and themes in those movies. The Studio Entertainment unit also blends into the Parks and Resorts unit with the development of themed parks and lands dedicated to movies and characters from Media Networks. This is best seen in the development of Cars Land in the World of Color Park at Disney California Adventure. This park was created as an alternative for Disney Land, to alleviate crowded conditions there. The plan didn't work so well until Cars Land opened. This Land is centered on the Motion picture Cars. Attendance has increased at the park. Readings Use your textbook, Crafting and Executing Strategy, to review the following: Chapter 8, "Corporate Strategy: Diversification and the Multibusiness Company." The following required reading is available full-text in the Capella University Library. Search for the article by clicking the linked title and following the instructions in the Library Guide. Bremmer's 2014 article, "The New Rules of Globalization," in Harvard Business Review, volume 92, issue 1/2, pages 103-107. Kaplan, Norton, and Rugelsjoen's 2010 article, "Managing Alliances with the Balanced Scorecard," in Harvard Business Review, volume 88, issue 1/2, pages 114-120. You will use these readings in your Unit 9 discussions. [u09d1] Unit 10 Discussion 1 Corporate Business Strategy Complete the assigned readings for this unit. Research and select a publicly traded, multibusiness organization (MNC) to use as a case study for both this discussion and the second discussion in Unit 9. You must choose an organization that you have not already used as a case study in this course. Discussion Where do new strategy and innovation opportunities come from? Use the organization you have selected and apply the information from your assigned Unit 9 readings to complete the following: Evaluate the businesses of your MNC and how they fit on the 9-cell matrix illustrated in Chapter 8 of your text. Explain how this MNC has created or leveraged synergies between its SBUs. Your discussion post should be a minimum of 250 words and incorporate at least one scholarly reference along with citations from the required readings. u09d2] Unit 10 Discussion 2 You may use the same organization you used for the first discussion in this unit. Discussion Using your selected MNC, evaluate how the organization manages these approaches: Acquisitions. Alliances. Joint Ventures. Partnerships. Which approach has had the greatest success and/or failure as measured in an alliance scorecard (see Kaplan, Norton, and Rugelsjoen's 2010 article)? Be sure you support your conclusions with validated references. Your discussion post should be a minimum of 250 words and incorporate at least one scholarly reference along with citations from the required readings. 2) What does a 9-cell industry attractiveness/business strength matrix displaying Walt Disney Company's business units look like? The x-axis is labeled as competitive strength/market position and the y-axis represents industry attractiveness. The way I determined the relative size and position of each of Disney's five main business lines mentioned in the case was by first completing a weighted competitive strength score for each of the business lines. Biggest circle = media networks (most % of total revenue) also in the top, highest ranking circle and second largest= parks and resorts (most competitive and most attractive industry) both fall in 3 boxes in top left of matrix. These receive most resources, opportunity to build most shareholder value. \"grow and build. The third largest circle is studio entertainment. This circle would fall into the middle area of the matrix, and receives medium allocation of resources. This one scores a little lower on industry attractiveness due to the decreasing sale of DVD products and the rise of lower cost alternatives. The unit is still somewhat competitive however due to strong intellectual property surrounding the brands. The fourth largest circle is the consumer products unit. This unit is also near the bottom of the middle of the matrix, a lower amount of resources are dedicated to this unit, and competition in consumer products is quite strong. The intellectual property surrounding the Disney name allows products in this category to remain competitive. The final unit, interactive media, falls near the higher end of the bottom 3 matrix squares. This segment is highly competitive and subject to factors ranging from seasonality to the pace of technological advancement. This segment is small and receives the lowest amount of resource allocation, but recent the recent acquisition of Playdom, Inc. could help alleviate the influence of those factors, and pulls this segment in line with the corporate strategy. It could eventually move to the lower end of the middle set of squares on the matrix