INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUSINESS, 12(1), 2007
ISSN: 1083−4346
General Electric Performance over a Half Century:
Evaluation of Effects of Leadership and Other
Strategic Factors by Quantitative Case Analysis
Richard H. Frankea, Anthony J. Mentob, Steve M. Prumoc, and
Timothy W. Edlundd abc Department of Management and International Business, The Sellinger School,
Loyola College; 4501 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21210 rfranke@loyola.edu, amento@loyola.edu, steve.prumo@verizon.net d Morgan State University; 720 West 34th St., Baltimore, MD 21211-2604 tim.edlund@toad.net ABSTRACT
We conducted quantitative case analysis of inflation-adjusted profitability and relative market value at General Electric over a
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In reality, of course, it's just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple."
According to Tichy and Sherman (1993), Jack Welch saw reality objectively and consistently applied this orientation. He was willing to face reality, even if it was different from that in the past: "Facing reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish ... facing reality is crucial in life, not just in business. You have to see the world in the purest, cleanest way possible or you can't make decisions on a rational basis."
As noted by Locke (2000), Welch was a problem finder, not just a problem solver. When he became CEO in 1981, General Electric already was quite profitable, without obvious problems. He grasped the reality that if the status quo continued GE eventually would decline, so he proceeded to transform the company. Even during his final years at GE, Welch was not content to rest on his triumphs. Thrusts in the 1990s included a massive quality program ("6 sigma"), a push further into financial services, and a string of acquisitions meant to give GE technological leadership in key industries.
A related aspect of Jack Welch's leadership was to set goals that seemed difficult or even impossible (Locke, 2000). He required that every business in GE's portfolio be number one or two in its industry--in the United States, and later in the world as a whole. Steve Kerr of General Electric described the GE "stretch target" as "basically an
The General Motors Corporation is a multifaceted company but its primary function is the manufacturing of automobiles and light trucks (SIC 3711). The General Motors stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has approximately 1,426,592,046 outstanding shares on the marketplace, as of 10/14/2001. It is headquartered in Detroit Michigan with offices around the world. General Motors has many other operations besides automobile manufacturing including: General Motors Acceptance Corporation Financial Services, Hughes Electronics Corporation, and the GM Locomotive Group. (Disclosure.com)
This passage reveals Santiago’s take on being alive. Indeed, it is living for the present. Santiago doesn’t reminisce about his old shepherd life or even his life back in Spain. He also doesn’t think about the future that often. He only thinks about his life right now in the middle of the desert, and for that, he feels alive. Engaging with the present moment also open up possibilities that can change one’s future, whether predestined or not. Thus, Santiago doesn’t trouble himself with anything but the present, because he knows that it’s more important than anything else.
Led to a more lean company structure Welch as manager of the century (e.g. global. trend) Employment gets better
currently ranks as the number one industry leader as they have extended their market outside of
the world, and that has lead to U.S. based plants shifting work over to foreign competitors, such
This essay is continuation of the financial evaluation from last week; we had to choose a company among the Fortune 500 in my case I chose GE Company. This Finance is about the study of money, it helps managers and senior leadership in an organization to be able to make better objective decisions (Blacconiere & Hopkins, 2002). Every company must invest in having an accountant which will create financial statements that provides information about the financial performance of a company.
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world's largest automaker, has been the global industry sales leader for 76 years. General Motors was founded 1908, in Flint, Michigan and currently employs approximately 284,000 people around the world. GM's global headquarters is the Renaissance Center located in Detroit, Michigan, USA, They currently manufacture their cars and trucks in 35 different countries. Its European headquarters are based in Zurich, Switzerland, and its Holden headquarters are located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In 2007, 9.37 million GM cars and trucks were produced globally under the following 12 brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GM Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and
Jessica Gallinelli's arbitrage investment firm is evaluating the acquisition of Honeywell International by General Electric. The deal represents the acquisition of a firm that produces components that compliment General Electric's existing product offerings. Honeywell and General Electric are both market leaders whose combined products offer a very comprehensive offering of airline and control components. Both firms are U.S. based corporations with vast multi-national operations. The deal appears cleared of U.S. anti-trust regulators, and the legendary stewardship of GE by Jack Welch adds a perceived impetus of inevitability, however the European Union approaches competitive issues much more broadly by concentrating on both horizontal and vertical merger ramifications for the competitive landscape.
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
America is not even the biggest country in the world but it produces the most goods and services. This is because the U.S government is not care takers, they will let the people do what they want and be successful in their businesses. America is always open for new ideas. That is why America will remain number one.
In this case of Procter and Gamble (P&G) and Wal-Mart’s partnership, the main issue seemed to be caused by a third-part company’s collaboration with Wal-Mart which interfered the healthy partnership between P&G and Wal-Mart, also threatened P&G’s leading position in the diaper market. P&G’s diaper brand – Pampers has been the industrial leader in the relevant segment for years. P&G has been developing a long-established partnership with Wal-Mart based on a just-in-time ordering and delivery system for disposable diapers featured with the electronic-data-interchange system linking Wal-Mart vendors with P&G factories. The result of this collaboration created a win-win situation which let Wal-Mart reduced both
A variety of leadership characteristics, traits, and behaviors of the chosen leaders are examined especially as designed during the reign of the two CEOs. An analysis of the reign of both Jack Welch Period (1981–2001) and Jeff Immelt (2001-2008) and their sweeping radical changes into the organizational culture and leadership provide an over view in relation to the management of the change process. The changes were at the heart of a magnificent transformation of the strategy of GE. The strategies employed triggered enhanced and more efficient performance on the managerial level as well as internal operations, (Aghion, & Durlauf, 2005).
Did GE in the Welch era fulfill its social responsibility duty? Could it have done better? What should it have done?
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
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.