Company History
Orlando is one of the most popular cities of America: located in the State of Florida. It is home to several theme parks most notably the Walt Disney Park. The WDP is located just after the Bay Lake in Florida. The theme park was opened back in 1971 with a single park, the Magic Kingdom, and two extra resort hotel. Today, the park has experienced growth and expansion that is breath-taking to see. This is one of the reasons why, the Walt Disney theme park in Florida is one of the most visited spots on the planet. It has a bit of everything for everyone: theme parks, horticultural spaces, hotels, resorts, and wilderness preserve parks which accounts for approximately 25% of the theme park. The human traffic that goes through the park everyday include a variety of people from kids to executives in international companies and corporations who conduct meetings, training sessions and corporate get-away every hour. The 47 square mile campus is now inclusive of a Magic Kingdom, Epcot theme park, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom: all together they attract approximately 50 million visitors annually. Walt Disney originally developed as a films industry before it ventured into other lucrative business ventures like owning theme parks and resort Hotels. The founder, Walt Disney, was a creative individual and the father of Disney Land. He passed away just before the Orlando project was completed.
Theses Statement
This research paper explores the relationship between Walt Disney Company and its suppliers by researching on its procurement practices.
Introduction
For a theme park this size that has only been closed a record three times ever since it was opened, a lot of preparations have to go into procuring relevant items, costumes for employees, assets from vendors and maintenance of the park to keep up with aesthetics. As such, Disney world entity is heavily vested in procurement practices that are reliable and have terms and obligations to vendors that must be fulfilled.
Supply Diversity
Walt Disney believes in a diverse portfolio of supplies as a means to be proactive innovators and also fulfill their corporate social responsibility. Given the volume of purchases made and the diverse portfolio of suppliers, the community gats equal opportunity to benefit from servicing tenders awarded by the company. This is of course subject to the competence of whoever is awarded the tender. In addition to this, Walt Disney as an international corporation is also quite keen in enhancing growth of SMEs and in particular, those affiliated to women groups globally. This minority group also includes veteran owned SMEs and those owned by disability groups. Their procurement method is therefore quite efficient, awarding tenders to competitive category of groups: women, veteran, disabled and established large supplier companies.
Supply Criteria
The criteria of procurement policy adhered to by the company is very strict on issues such as on-time delivery of goods or services procurement. Given the volume of people and the need to keep visitors satisfied and impart excellent experience, a company supplying costumes for a performance must be able to keep up with demands and designs. Such a company must also supply quality products as per the agreement in the code of conduct with the company. If an incident not favorable to production were to occur, the supplier in question must communicate clearly and possess the technical competence to handle such technical issues in a timely fashion that fulfills their level of integrity. Said company, in maintaining decorum (integrity) should consider Walt Disney as family and be ready to shoulder risks together as they forge the way forward to a future bearing promise.
Levels of Procurement
Disney procurement process is structured in such a way to exploit globally, nationally, regional and locally. In addition, the company imposes code of ethics upon its suppliers that must be adhere to in the areas of child labor as dictated by international law, involuntary labor, also subject to the law. A company that forces labor upon individuals will automatically lose the tender award. The same also applies to the health and safety of the workers. For instance, the company procures steel goods regularly. If the workers of the company supplying the steel are subject to unhealthy working standard, the WDC revokes the tender agreement. Additionally, they must adhere to agreements set on subcontracting and environmental protection.
Upkeep of the theme parks, the nursery of all the gardens and plants
The Walt Disney theme parks are some of the most attractive areas in the theme park within Florida state. These theme parks are designed like a scene from a movie. They enhance customer satisfaction and impart customer experience that is unrivaled. These theme parks do not bring much revenue globally. They are designed to boost company growth in Florida State and globally by enhancing customer experience. The cost for upkeep alone ranges in the realm of 70% annual capital expenditures. These parks were designed by a group of special people known as imagineers. These are individuals who could design the theme parks to adopt any prevailing theme that was trending in an area. For instance if the Avengers movie, a marvel production owned by WDC, was trending, then the theme park would be changed to adopt such. The company therefore made great efforts procuring the services of landscapers, sound technicians, mode makers, sculptors, lighting experts, engineers, interior design fellows, graphic designers and special effects crew to manage the theme parks. They of course could be outsourced from different companies by procuring the services through said company or directly on a personal basis.
The park has a tree farm that contains a manner of species of plants, tree and shrubs used within the park. For every tree used in each of the theme parks within Orlando park, there is a ‘back up’ tree of similar species being grown in the background. They are kept as such to keep up with the image projected to the consumer. For instance, if one of the tree branches was destroyed, then it would be replaced when nobody is around. The following day it would look as good as new. This job requires experts who can maintain and facilitate moving of the trees, plants or flowers in the theme park depending on the occasion. For instance, during the Spring and Garden events, staff is required to set up hundreds of design flower décor. Approximately 30 members of the staff are required to attend to nursery. More also have to be procured to do night maintenance such as the grass cutting which must be maintained at the stipulated size demanded by Walt Disney. For ease of operations, Walt Disney can procure the services of such specialized staff from horticultural companies that have expert employees with experience in the discipline. The company must also procure trees from relevant tree farms to supply them with any species not available within the tree farm.
Collaborative Supplier Relations
Collaborative supplier partnerships have become the norm for most international corporations the world over. According to Brian Fillard, this manner of doing business has advantages for both the supplier and the company in question. Global companies such as Walt Disney need to keep up with the trends if they are to stay viable in the consumers thought process for extended periods of time. In addition, he believes such businesses have come to rely on the creativity of the suppliers to provide solutions to some of the challenges they face. In fact, in most cases, the responsibility is outsourced to a particular company, say Entech Creative industries, invested in creative works or Rafab Specialty Fabrication Inc invested in designing costumes. For instance, a company invested in designing time sensitive themes that are also sensitive to production cost but still ‘wow’ the customer can collaborate with the tendering company to not only shoulder the service employee provision, but also, provide solutions and take action to resolve the challenge faced by the parent company. In this case, an outsourced horticultural company will take the responsibility of maintaining the nursery, exploring new species to add to the nursery and replacing tree damaged by lightning or wind. The supplier on the other hand may also benefit by gaining recognition supplying such a prominent company, financial benefits for handling the extra responsibility and growth of their business. Collaborative Supplier partnerships are therefore bilateral efforts on both sides to manage cost of production for the supplier, which translates to relatively higher profit margins; issues of quality of product, managerial capability, delivery, technology, time sensitivity and so on. These benefit the supplier then the tendering business in that order. The overall result is the growth of both. WDC has however taken the initiative of sourcing for certified suppliers that are minority and special groups: veterans owned businesses, minority groups and women groups. These groups benefit from the company experience together as they also develop in the competitive business supply arena.
The company has worn various awards such as Best new family attraction for the Hogwarts Express theme. A second award was given for Best full-service restaurant at Monsieur Paul within the Epcot theme park. The company has also worn additional awards for Best quick-service restaurant (Leaky Cauldron), Best Hotel restaurant (Victoria and Albert's) and Best Hotel –Portofino Bay Hotel.
Vendor Management
This is basically a measure that the company puts in place to safeguard itself from risks while reaping the maximum benefits from the vendor. This also has merits to the buying company since it affords them the power to control costs and have a say on service excellence. A company such a Color Reflections Inc can supply the company with an assortment of color write ups and design arrangements or paint to facilitate such. The company can make use of vendor management to take control of aspects such a costs of assets acquired regularly from said vendor. It may also use Phillips to facilitate lighting but manage the relationship in such a way to reap maximum benefits from the relationship.
References
Collins, E., & Collins, C. (2015, April 12). WDW Tree Farm. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from Caroline and Elly's Magical Moments in the DCP! Living The Dream at WDW: https://collinsrace1.wordpress.com/tag/cast-connection/
Disney Sourcing and Procurement. (2015). Retrieved April 10, 2016, from City of Irvine: https://legacy.cityofirvine.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=16204
Fillard, B. (2011, January 24). Definition: Developing Collaborative Supplier Partnerships. SCM ARTICLES.
Johnson, R. (1991). A Strategy for Service—Disney Style. Journal of Business Strategy, 38 - 43.
Orlando Florida Destination Guide. (2015, October 13). 50 Things You Didn’t Know About Disney World. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from http://www.orlando-florida.net/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-disney-world/
Robert, N. r. (2015). Theme Park Insider Awards. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from Theme Park Insider: http://www.themeparkinsider.com/awards/
Spiderbook. (2015, March 02). Walt Disney Suppliers. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from Spiderbook: http://spiderbook.com/waltdisney-suppliers.html
The Walt Disney Company. (n.d.). SUPPLIER DIVERSITY. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from The Walt Disney Company (TWDC): https://ditm-twdc-us.storage.googleapis.com/Supplier-Diversity-Document.pdf
