Publication: Grant, R. (2010). Jeff Immelt and the Reinventing of General Electric, 2009. Retrieved from: http://edugen/wileyplus.com Company: General Electric Relevant Facts Somewhat difficult transition between Welch management style and Immelt's paradigm. Old mode: Acquire more and brand globally; New mode: Rely on GE capital and focus on long term lines, minimizing underperformers. GE divested of a number of units (insurance, reinsurance, plastics, etc.) Immelt reshaped business portfolio towards more technological or popular units that would show more immediate profit Immelt needed to revamp in order to avoid perceptions of insolvency and tie ins with Lehman and other subprime and fiscal losses. Key Issues New business portfolio includes focus on: Broadcasting and entertainment, healthcare, energy, technology infrastructures, and finance. GE exists low growth and/or low margin businesses; Issue is return of cost of capital. GE's new position and growth model focuses on areas that are growing in the 21st century, have longer-term capacity, but will show ROI in the short-term as well. Core Competencies Infrastructure technology (healthcare, aviation, transportation, energy) GE Capital fiscal services, high ROI Innovation and bringing superior performing products to the market Strategy Continue to develop and delight the consumer with sustainable innovations that improve the profitability and environmental profile of our products. Recommendations
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
Due to the growing competition and diminishing market share, companies are opting for different strategies to achieve their survival objectives as well as growth. Companies are thus executing grand strategies to provide their businesses with a clear direction for its strategic actions. These strategies, therefore, aim at both short term and long term sustainability and growth, and they include innovation, market development, product development, and concentration.
Organizations pursuing this type of business strategy try to develop a competitive advantage based on product innovation. The strategy requires employees to continually develop new products and services to create an organization’s advantage in the market. These companies create and maintain an environment that encourages employees to bring new ideas into the company.
While it was foreseen that the company would initially take financial setbacks because of the reorganization, it was not believed that the financial risks would be drastic. However, the impending report that Mr. Elesser has to present to the board will detail a net income that will be nearly 26 million dollars in the red for 2004 (see exhibit 2)3. The blunt force restructuring met resistance on numerous fronts. First of all, the various components of the company did not operate under the same uniformed leadership objectives. Each division was set up to look out for their own interests and markets. When the restructuring plan that focused on a more centralized management process, many of the things that worked for one division did not necessarily work for other divisions of the company. This left some divisions at a severe disadvantage. Another obstacle that worked against the restructuring was the employee unions in which the company had to deal. The unions were not on board with the various downsizing and restructuring methods. In addition, the company had to deal with a couple of different unions which posed a problem with negotiating tactics. Benefit costs were also a significant investment that did not hold up well under the auspice of restructuring.
The current strategy of the company is to enter foreign markets and to succeed there. The corporate main strategy is to provide high quality product to its customers.
* 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.
About GE transportation‘s example, we can see that the strategy came in a good moment, just after the big failure of AC6000 that happened because they misread the market and developed a product that was not solving any special need of their customer and was not foreseeing the future of the industry, that‘s were EVO project ventures, some say that you can‘t make the same mistake twice and certainly with EVO project GE didn’t made that because now they achieve to understand where the industry was going and how they could be the best ones offering a punctual and accurate solution to the specific needs of the locomotive field. After this, they pretend to go further by working in the hybrid engine, that offered a really complex system of batteries that storage the energy produced on breaking to use it as fuel and save big quantities of money and at the same time reducing considerably the emissions caused by diesel and gas.
General Motors had to restructure the way they did business after being saved by a Government bailout (Bigman, 2013). The company understood that in order to be able to achieve success again, they would have to restructure many things; After 3 years of being bailed out, the company established a goal of $10 billion dollars a year (Kinicki & Williams, 2013), they changed their perspective into focusing on making more margins and profits, instead of focusing on incentives and units sold. In 2012 GM reported net income of $8 billion dollars, but the company plans to be more aggressive in terms of income and profit generated after paying expenses; which was one of the areas where the company had to make adjustments and restructure in order
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.
|the industry and its challenges it is important to understand its various phases of growth so far. |
GE has to examine what strategy the firm is going to follow. Will the firm’s
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
In the cases analyzed, we might infer that during a period of economic difficulties companies had gone through deep discontinuity. As such, this determined the need for a turnaround to realign the companies’ strategies with the external and internal environment. These changes impacted the four companies analyzed previously.
GE was entering a new generational era, one where technology is at the forefront of growth and adaptation. Immelt identified Technology as one of GE’s major drivers for future growth which was signaled by his expansion of GE’s R&D budgets. He shifted the importance of Technology within GE by focusing on the R&D projects that offered large scale market potential, reffered to as “Imagination breakthroughs”.
Doing these acquisitions at some certain stages were important to diversify GE technologies and maximize its market share (Immelt, 2005), however, the balancing between growing organically by empowering the company from within and acquiring some companies is even more important for setting up the company directions. Since more than half of the company revenue is derived from its financial services (Company Data 2008), this brings the argument onto the table about the nature of the company making it a financial company with a manufacturing arm.