Carnival Cruise Line - A MGMT 7160 Blog by Joshua Dixon Williams

     While Chapter 5 had many interesting lessons in it about analyzing strengths and weaknesses based on the Resource-Based View, there were a couple of things in the Chapter that stood out as pertaining to Carnival Cruise Line. The first was institutional leadership as distinctive competence. It all starts with the top. Christine Duffy, President of Carnival, is the first female to hold the presidency of a cruise company. Since arriving at Carnival in 2015, she has implemented a family feel on the ships. Ships not only exude fun for everyone who works and travels on them, but Carnival has become a culture with an underlying mission of family. The company as a whole now recognizes many employees that serve both behind the scenes and on-board the ship. They think about the small things when it comes to treating every family like they are the only ones on board. Each ship has leaders and management that are fun, heart warming personalities that interact with families throughout the enti

Overall, Carnival Cruise Line is in the travel industry. Their main goal is for travelers to have fun, explore, and choose fun everyday they are on the cruise. However, with the travel industry, there are so many different aspects. You have cruising, flying, driving, hotels, resorts, camping, and so much more. The travel industry has so many different aspects that it is hard to singularly define the kind of industry they have across the board. When looking at the overall industry, travel is a fragmented industry. Therefore, consolidation has worked in the major segments. Cruise companies such as Carnival have purchased many other companies to sit under their umbrella brand of Carnival Corporation. This has allowed them to influence the market as the largest cruising company in the United States. Other segments, such as airlines, have done the same thing. Delta and American have consolidated with many other airlines to be the two premier airlines in the United States. Due to these mov

     Prior to reading Chapter 3, I naively thought this post would be specifically about environmental threats, meaning issues within the environment. Carnival has a lot, and that is why they try to be focused on sustainability in all that they do (as I discussed in my last post). The oceans, wildlife, and all other areas that Carnival travels to have a lot of eyes focused on them as environmental safety is a major concern for many people today. While I could have a whole post specifically about the environment, I think I will take it in a different direction to discuss threats to Carnival's economical environment, specifically analyzing Carnival using Porter's Five Forces.      When looking at the five forces framework, there is the threat of entry, the threat of rivalry, threat of suppliers, threat of buyers, and threat of substitutes that directly make up the overall aspect of environmental threats. When looking at Carnival Cruise Line, they sit within an oligopoly as a

     Carnival Cruise Line was established in 1972 by Ted Arison. Ted's family were avid travelers, but they discovered that more often than not that cruising was not affordable for large families. Therefore, he started Carnival Cruise Line. His mission was to make cruising available to everyone, something that still holds true today. Carnival is an affordable, family-friendly cruise line leading the industry in fun cruises for entire families. Carnival Cruise Line is now under the umbrella of Carnival Corporation, who has a portfolio of 9 different cruise lines, and is run by chairman Micky Arison, Ted's son. CCL's stock sits at $62.06 on the market, and the company had $17.5 billion in revenue in 2017. One of the most unique things about Carnival is they are the only cruise company to own their own ships. This creates huge value for their ships when they need to either sell ships to other companies or build new ones.      Carnival's competitive advantage is good i

Hello friendly readers - My name is Joshua Dixon Williams, and I have been tasked with creating a blog for my MGMT 7160 class over this semester. As the blog has to pertain to the global strategic management of a certain company, I chose Carnival Cruise Line. My job with ALSAC/St. Jude deals with Carnival often. Another colleague and I work with Carnival daily to fulfill world-wide fundraising campaigns for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. This includes anything from dance parties on ship called Groove for St. Jude, Build-a-Bear sales that benefit St. Jude, round-up and donate asks at embarkation, and so much more. I look forward to sharing my thoughts, experiences, and learnings with all of you over the next few months. Cheers, Joshua Dixon Williams