Well, the problem is (at least in my experience) MBA's are trained/engrained/brainwashed with the fact that money and the bottom line are what matter to a business. Let everyone else worry about customer satisfaction. This is great as long as you have upper management who can make the call between money and the guests... and up until recently, that's been the case. Unfortunately, bean-counter central @Disney has been slowly persuading the upper management folks (especially the upper management people in the parks and movie areas) that money matters, not the Disney name.
Proof:
1. Lack of upkeep of parks: There's a GREAT page out there that is listing park upkeep problems for all the WDW resorts - and apparently it's a site that folks up at DisneyWorld are paying attention to now... trying to find the URL... anyone have it?
2. Straight-to-video "sequels" of classics: What the HELL are they thinking? Since when did Cinderella's story go on after midnight?
3. Lay-offs. While they seem inevitable, I heard people complaining about how it was sometimes difficult to find a cast member when they needed something and that they weren't getting the same service they were used to. I know I chatted with a few of my CM friends who said that they had been re-assigned other people's tasks and were being asked to double up or split shifts and other things to take up for the slack of losing employees - and while they tried to make it go unnoticed to the extent possible - it was noticed.
Basically what it boils down to is that the people at the top (read: LOTS of people up at the top with BIG salaries, many of them unjustified) don't care about the parks or the Disney name - they care about the share holders and their bottom line.
My last point is that since these changes have started to come around (and again, the point could and probably will be made that there have been similar changes in the industry as of late, but Disney has avoided many of these fluxes in the entertainment sector by focusing on the successful sections of their company during lean times in others), the Disney stock has gone DOWN in price and DOWN in returns - Eisner's letter to the stockholder's has forecasted hope each year - and the stockholders (only those who are in it solely for revenue-generating) have been let down each year for the past couple of years. It has not produced the ROI that many people expected or that Eisner forecasted. It has instead, taken a turn for the worse.
Ideally, the Disney company would be managed from the bottom up. The lowest level of Cast members, i.e. those with the most experience and interaction with the guests and customers who know the MOST about what the consumer wants would tell their managers what they see. The managers would make whatever decisions were possible at their level and pass on the information up their bosses and so on, and so forth. The last people who would ever hear about ANYTHING would be the bean-counters - and all they'd be told is "We need money for this. Find it." This is how it was in Walt Disney's day, and that's how it should be. See Roy E. Disney's words for yourself in an exclusive interview (the whole text is available at
http://www.wdwinfo.com/Roy_n_Eisner.htm): "My dad (Roy O. Disney was very much the financial mind in all their plans. People always said if you gave Walt $10 to build anything, he would spend $20. Well, it was then my dad's job to find that other $10!"
And to give Michael Eisner credit (and I do: He's done unimaginable things to bring Disney out of the hands of corporate raiders - and for that, he has all of us in his debt)... so take a look at his closing remarks from the 2001 Annual Report (
http://disney.go.com/corporate/inve...roduction/letterToShareholders/wiseWords.html) and understand exactly how he feels about the Disney company.
Overall, Disney still does better than everyone else. But the question is: are they doing all they used to do, or are they cutting corners and are we letting them do it? Small things like constant care of paint/railings/signage/not abusing classic characters - little things that seem insignificant... but they are what set Disney apart from the average companies and make them what they have been and what they can continue to be... the BEST.
