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Disney’s Business Foundations

What are the foundations of business that the Walt Disney Company was built on. What standards of excellence were Disney known for so many years that once seemed synonymous with the name Walt Disney. The Imagineering Rebirth blog has scanned and posted an internal document that was like a manifesto driving every business decision in the company in the post Walt days.

Quality. Uniqueness. Value. Understanding The Disney Audience. Friendliness. The Disney Dynamic: Synergetics.

This document reads like a laundry list of values discarded by year by year as the company forgot what got it where it was.

Now, I’m not going to sugar coat it. The Walt Disney Studios was in dire straights when Eisner and Wells took over in 1982. But the parks were still huge profit centers and Feature Animation was still showing signs of life (although Eisner promptly shuffled some of them out the door with John Lasseter). But the first thing Eisner and Wells did was re-implement the tenets of this business philosophy. They did such a good job that a book "In Search Of Excellence" was written on how other companies could copy the Disney way. Sadly, the company has spent the better part of the last 20 years drifting away from those ideas. Well, now it’s time to return to the Disney way. Take The Disney business philosophy to heart and take the company to even further heights. What say you?