Walt Disney → Eisner I (Years?) → Eisner II (Years) → Iger I (Years) → Iger II (Years
- Walt Disney Supply Chain:
- Products: Animated films
- To understand the system, we have to think about the origin though the receipt. So someone creates the idea, has to produce, has to distribute. Someone has to market to the people who see them
- Inputs + process + outputs
- There are intermediaries w/in this
- Animated films create a fly wheel where you can sell through retailers and also in theme parks that are possible because of the content and brand.
- Once you start scoping a system, ask what they own and outsource.
- Why would you own and why would outsource?
- Where are most of Disney’s customers experiencing Disney? Movie theaters → why not own the theater?
- Financial + control (where are the synergies and where are their not, what else would you show at the movie? What’s easy to do w/ a contract and what’s harder to do?)
- I fundamentally don’t believe you can contract culture
Why was Disney not successful for the 15 years after Walt passed?
- Content stopped thriving. Similar to the Viking case, you have to create a market for the future customer that’s not here just yet.
Eisner
- Bought touchstone + miramax - What are the synergies between these and other existing disney assets? Were they too discordant
- He develops CAPS and partners w/ Pixar.
- Pixar is a preview of what kids will want more of. It’s creating a future that’s not fully here yet.
- Where would the conflicts come: Extending the experience in the hotel.
- Why open theaters?
- Specific investment. Don’t contract out b/c outfitting it for Disney would make it less generally usable. So customization likely dilutes the ability to have an arms length arrangements.
- They found the sports teams were a distraction and they offloaded
- Why does it make sense that Disney has its own channel?
- Where things are rife w/ ambiguity then we likely want to consider ownership.
- We can exclude specific things, we can mandate data sharing…
- But how is Monica incentivized? Monica is optimizing for her angle of the business. Whereas I might want to introduce new products and programming. If you have a system, Dinsey channel needs alignment w/ the rest of the system.
- What are the synergies between other parts of disney and television networks? It’s a distribution/exhibition channel.
- You might be willing to sacrifice ad revneues in ABC to make it up somewhere else. Not directly clear that they’re going to use ABC as effectively as possible.
Iger Era
- How is value being created if Disney rather than George Lucas has the rights
- Disney+ is primarily a data play for the ecosystem. The contracting of data is now more difficult (data is fungible, so Netflix has access to your content and they get to design against it)
- Is this a rivalry good that my competition can exploit? Who are the competitors and does outsourcing/distributing empower your competitors.
- He’s great at asking the follow-up: Well, if not netflix, why not? Oh, they create content? So, who would stream and not make content?
- Something being valuable does not then imply Disney should own. Something can be a complement but not own. What should disney own and what should I contract for.
Disney’s success has the following in common:
- Generating successful IP
- Relying on the same gameplan as 50 years ago and not over stretching. Avoiding television networks, sports teams, etc.