Returning Disney CEO Bob Iger announces plans for sweeping overhaul of Disney business, including opening more parks around the world, diversifying business with digital and mobile games, and focusing Disney in new digital entertainment media.
The key to Disney’s success over the decades has been the ability to create, acquire, manage, and run successful businesses at the same time. Now Iger is taking that same approach to his business—and in doing so he has established a new category of entertainment product—digital media.
He told me at a conference earlier this year that creating “digital media” will be part of the company’s future. “I don’t think there’s an end to the digital evolution,” he said.
But first, Iger wants to shake up his business by cutting costs. He wants to reduce the number of places he rents in his parks. In his presentation at D23, he showed how much a full-service, branded hotel is costing him. “It’s $250 per room for a franchise that’s owned. For us, the cost per room is only $60 for a franchise that’s not owned.” When he took over, Iger said, Disney had more than 70 places to rent and he had to cut all those, leaving him with only 40 locations.
Disney is now working on expanding its parks to all the key international market, as well as the U.S., so that it will be “the largest family entertainment company in the world,” he said. “We don’t have a choice. It’s just the way it is.”
He also wants to become a more mobile entertainment company by combining the different digital products into one. “One of the things I don’t understand is why mobile is so hard. They’re very complex.”
But mobile doesn’t have to be complicated. “If you use Apple and Android, then you don’t have a
