The success of the pixar disney strategic alliance demonstrated that

Please read this pdf document - Disney.pdf - answer the questions about the case in this word doc- Disney Case Questions.docx - and submit the completed word doc back to me!Disney: Building Billion-Dollar Franchises By Frank Rothaermel With $55 Billion in annual revenues in 2017, Disney is the world’s largest media company and is renowned for its Walt Disney Studios and the popular Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Over the past decade, Disney has grown through a number of highprofile acquisitions, including Pixar (2006), Marvel (2009), and Lucasfilm (2012), the creator of Star Wars. All this was done with the goal of building billion-dollar franchises based on movie sequels, park rides, and merchandise. In 2017, Disney revealed even bigger ambitions. Disney’s Corporate Strategy As a diversified media company, Disney is active in a wide array of business activities— movies, amusement parks, cable and broadcast television networks (ABC, ESPN, and others), cruises, and retailing. It became the world’s leading media company to a large extent by pursuing a corporate strategy of related-linked diversification. That is, some, but not all, of Disney’s business activities share common resources, capabilities, and competencies. Disney executes its corporate strategy by entering alliances and acquiring other media businesses to create theme-based franchises. The corporate strategy of creating billiondollar franchises through diversification is Disney’s main focus. CEO Bob Iger leads a group of about 20 executives whose sole responsibility is to hunt for new billion-dollar franchises. This group of senior leaders decides top-down which projects are a go and which are not. They also allocate resources to particular projects. Disney has even organized its employees in the consumer products group around franchises such as Frozen, Toy Story, Star Wars, and other cash cows. The corporate strategy around building billion-dollar franchises is certainly paying off: Disney has seen a steady growth to its top line, and it earned some $10 billion in profits in 2016. Its stock rose more than 350 percent between 2010 and 2017, outperforming rivals such as Time Warner, Sony’s Columbia Pictures, and 21st Century Fox. Disney and Pixar: “Try Before You Buy” To understand Disney’s corporate strategy of growing through acquisition, let’s look at one of the most successful deals in recent history: Disney acquired Pixar, and then built a number of billion-dollar franchises around it. It all started with a strategic alliance. Pixar started as a computer hardware company producing high-end graphic display systems. One of its customers was Disney.