Case Study About General Electric

In the history of corporations few companies have demonstrated the staying power and tenacity as General Electric (GE.). Of the companies that originally appeared when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was rolled out in 1896 only GE is still doing business today. (General Electric, 2007) GE’s 125 year run has not been spotless. GE, like any long lasting organization, has had many ups and downs. GE’s past has at times been glorious and at other times has been dark and manipulative.

Analyzing GE’s corporate-level strategy from 2001 – present with Jeff Immelt as CEO, GE focuses on the growth and development platforms. Technology is the key driving force for GE’s future and growth. Advancements in industries such as energy, health and aviation fueled demand for cleaner and more efficient energy production. GE identified new markets with potential high-growth that offered attractive returns through strategic mergers and acquisitions. As CEO, Jeff Immelt established a process for identifying projects that offered attractive growth potential which were then nurtured and treated as special projects or initiatives that were not subject to strict budget constraints. Immelt introduced GE’s three strategic imperatives as: (1) sustaining its strong business model, (2) strengthening the business portfolio, and (3) driving its growth initiatives. www.ge.com

On Friday, September 7, 2001, 43-year-old Jeff Immelt became GE’s ninth CEO in its 109-year

* Technical Leadership – Immelt identified technology as a key driver of GE’s future growth and emphasized the need to speed up the diffusion of new technologies within GE and turn the corporate R&D into an intellectual house.

In three words Dismal, Denial, and Diswoned! Mr. Jack Welch’s, reigned as Chairman and CEO of GE during the years of 1981-2001, taking over from his predecessor Reginald H. Jones.

These weaknesses affect the company tremendously along with the threats of the world economic crisis, political risks, governments’ market regulations, and unstable financial markets. A wide range portfolio, which is strongly vulnerable to world economic crisis, GE is also suffering from a decreasing demand and prices. One of the most positive aspects of investing in GE is that investors can be protected from big decrements. GE is also implementing new technologies and products, which offsets the losses and negative tendencies in some areas of GE (Ozcan, 2013).

Also; Citigroup, Inc. another competitor for the GE Company made a total of $64.95 billion in 2011, and when we compare it with GE and SI its earnings where even less in the same year, making General Electric a leader in the industry. With this valuable information GE management can analyze its competitor’s financial statements results and from there they can evaluate their faults and create new ways to increase their annuals earnings and secure their place as one of leading companies in their industry. Another way GE can go forward in the industry is by adapting its services and products to other countries that need them.

In late June when General Electric Company Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt announced that GE would

This report’s objective is to provide analysis of the leadership challenge that General Electric (GE) is currently facing, and to recommend solutions. The primary problem is determining what kind of candidate is required to replace retiring CEO Jack Welch. This has left GE to question how much does the company want to change policy over the previous era, and where does the company want to be in future?

General Electric is a well-known company in many regions of the world, but what people aren’t particularly aware of are the steps that General Electric has taken to get to where it is at today. When I think of General Electric the first thing that comes to mind is the role that the company plays in the production of household appliances, but General Electric is a much bigger contributor to people’s lives than is most people realize. People aren’t familiar with the internal business decisions that General Electric makes to ensure that the company continues to grow and run as smoothly as possible, allowing the company to continue to provide people with the services that they have grown to recognize as being a trademark of General Electric.

Analysis - GE has likely been so successful over the years because of its ability to foresee major trends and capitalize upon them. In the 1960s, for instance, GE was one of the eight major computer companies. Even recently, since 1986, GE has continued to acquire several organizations; portions of NBC, wind manufacturing, universe pictures, aerospace industries, international firms, software and hardware manufacturing, even oil companies abroad. The company culture describes itself as not one company, but many each unit a vast and complex enterprise in and of itself, with a corporate

One of the world’s largest automakers, GMC has it’s roots traced back to 1908. Also known as GM, this company is a United States-based automaker with its headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. After the General Motors Company was founded, it soon became known as one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. In 1909, the Grabowsky Rapid Motor Vehicle Company (GMC) joined with GM. The trade name GMC Trucks was first exhibited in 1912 at the New York Auto Show and registered with the U.S. Patent Office eight months later. The

     When Jack Welch was named CEO of General Electric, Welch saw a company in trouble even though the business world saw GE as an intrinsically healthy corporation, secure in its position as a world industrial leader. Welch knew that the company was too large to fail yet GE was too unwieldy to adapt for further growth. The changes he instituted restructured and revolutionized GE and made Welch the most respected CEO in business today. After reading the book there were three parts that really stood out for me.

In 2001, shortly after Jeff Immelt became the CEO of GE, a series of events changed and impacted the corporate landscape. The immediate challenges that he faced included 9/11, and a subsequent series of high profile corporate scandals (Enron, WorldCom). In 2008, the financial crisis hit and had a severe impact on GE’s primary growth source, GE Capital causing it to accumulate bad debts and asset write-downs. These events caused slow domestic economic growth, crisis of confidence among investors and more global competitors.

Jack Welch’s vision of what GE was possible of gave the company a vision for twenty years while he was the CEO and chairman. He states, “leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.” (Winning, pg 67) He not only allowed for employees to stretch, but demanded it. In teaching workers to stretch Welch knew that workers “may fail. In fact, they probably will fail. But stretching, and stretching the business, is going to improve performance results.” (Jack Welch on Leadership, pg 105) He also states that “only by setting the performance bar high did it become possible to discover people’s capabilities.” Jack Welch’s emphasis on candor and breaking the bureaucracy of modern business separated him from his contemporaries. He excited others of the possibility of being the biggest and best company in the world and rewarding his best employees that shared the values of GE. According to FORTUNE Editorial Director Geoffrey Colvin In "The Ultimate Manager, Welch leads the annals of management history not for anticipating the new world's changes ahead, but for acting on them: "His great achievement is that having seen it, he faced up to the huge, painful changes it demanded, and made them faster and more emphatically than anyone else in business. He led managers into this new world, which we still inhabit, and just as important, he showed business