Reinvigorating Mickey and friends via new technology.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: Cover Story

Mickey Mouse and friends -- having grown up for the past 65 years with the current latest and greatest technologies -- are now even more dependent on technology to deliver them, to even more viewers, through a variety of new distribution platforms. Steward of the famed Disney brand, The Walt Disney Co. -- with its two major acquisitions in recent years of Capital Cities/ABC and the Family Channel -- sees itself positioned to exploit opportunities created by the newest technologies.

Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Thomas O. Staggs is not too concerned with some current realities. The company's stock price performance is reasonably flat since 1998, and the recession helped to push reported earnings lower, with first-quarter 2002 operating profit slumping 42 percent, principally due to advertising-based businesses and post-9/11 travel-related theme park downturns.

Staggs says, "You have to keep it in perspective. It's incumbent upon us to not lose sight of the long-term strategy. It's hard not to be incredibly bullish, given all that's going on in the environment around us."

Looking back several years, he says the company had an under-exploited library of film, an animation business needing reinvigoration and a theme park business that had not been built out to its full potential. With Act One setting the stage -- establishing the brand and properties on the Internet -- he says the company is now in Act Two, taking advantage of the Internet and digital technology to capitalize on its potential.

Technological advances have historically driven the entertainment business by: improving products it already has, creating new forms of products, increasing product distribution, and driving the revenue-generating hours per day per consumer. Technology continues to offer opportunities for a company with strong content creation capabilities.

While the business is competitive, Staggs says the key is to keep creating great products. "A content company, like ours, has to grapple with the fact that you have to be inventing all the time. This company has done it successfully for 65 years. For those of us working here now, we have to make sure that we're fostering an environment where that creativity continues."

Staggs joined the company in 1990 as a manager of strategic planning and rose through the ranks to assume his present position four years ago. At Disney, he says, the CFO position is viewed as a strategic one, not just about...