Hasbro Interactive

CASE SUMMARY

Hasbro Inc. (Hasbro) was founded as Hassenfeld Brothers in 1932 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The founder was Henry Hassenfeld, an immigrant from Poland. The operation of Hasbro began with manufacturing inexpensive product, which eventually turning to toys in the 1940s. In 1951, the company hit pay dirt for the Mr. Potato Head that indicated bright future of Hasbro in toys. Next big hit was G.I. Joe around a decade after the first hit. In 1968, the company went public. The beginning of investment in interactive games was acquisition of Milton Bradley. In early 1990s, the company acquired Tonka Toys which includes Parker Brothers.

In 995, realizing that interactive games becoming popular and the company’s potential in that area, Alan Hassenfeld, chief executive at that time decided to create Hasbro Interactive as new division to take risk in interactive games. The division was headed by Tom Dusenberry and consist of outside experts hired to meet the needs and demands such as software developers. Mr. Dusenberry was responsible to make all operational decisions and others related to the division. The division generated revenues right away from the existing CD-ROM products which showed rapid growth and leading to rapid success. Hasbro Interactive paid great bonus to the employees for that rapid success. To continue achieving increase in revenues, Mr. Dusenberry expanded company’s activities beyond translating existing Hasbro properties to interactive format. He purchased license to produce games based on successful television game shows and also announced to build new game from scratch. The company also began acquiring software firms to expand its product line.

The acquiring companies become separate divisions in Hasbro. The multi-business-unit structure revealed that strategic planning, budgeting, and business performance reviews were not Hasbro’s strength. Through 1998, Hasbro became more aggressive in setting revenue targets for each division. Some...