...Corporate Strategy Analysis: General Electric Co. (1981–present) Stanislav Bucifal Australian National University July 2009 Corporate Strategy Analysis: General Electric Co. (1981–present) Stanislav Bucifal Introduction The General Electric Company (GE) is widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful corporations of the 20th century. This paper aims to critically analyse the corporate strategy of GE during the period from 1981 to present under the leadership of two very different but equally influential CEOs—Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt. The essay is organised in four sections. The first section describes GE’s corporate strategy from 1981 to 2001 with Jack Welch as CEO, followed immediately by a critical analysis of Welch’s strategic approach in the second section. The third section then describes GE’s corporate strategy from 2001 to present with Jeff Immelt as CEO, followed again by a critical analysis of Immelt’s strategic approach in section four. 1. The Jack Welch period (1981–2001) When Jack Welch took up his post as GE’s CEO in 1981 he embarked on a radical transformation of GE’s strategy, ushering in a new era of performance management and internal efficiency. Welch’s profit guidance aimed for earnings growth of 1.5 times to double of the GDP growth rate and his management philosophy found its articulation in GE’s slogan—Speed, Simplicity, Self-Confidence (GE 1995). These values would reflect not only in the organisation’s systems and processes...
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...Publishing 2009 Corporate Strategy Analysis: General Electric Co. (1981–2008) – A Case Study Stanislav Bucifal Introduction The General Electric Company (GE) is widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful corporations of the 20th century. This paper aims to analyse critically the corporate strategy of GE during the period from 1981 to 2008 under the leadership of two very different but equally influential CEOs—Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt. The paper is organised in four sections. The first section describes GE’s corporate strategy from 1981 to 2001 with Jack Welch as CEO, followed immediately by a critical analysis of Welch’s strategic approach in the second section. The third section then describes GE’s corporate strategy from 2001 to 2008 with Jeff Immelt as CEO, followed again by a critical analysis of Immelt’s strategic approach in section four. Keywords: General Electric, Corporate strategy, Leadership, CEOs. 1. The Jack Welch Period (1981–2001) When Jack Welch took up his post as GE’s CEO in 1981 he embarked on a radical transformation of GE’s strategy, ushering in a new era of performance management and internal efficiency. Welch’s profit guidance aimed for earnings growth of 1.5 times to double of the GDP growth rate and his management philosophy found its articulation in GE’s slogan—Speed, Simplicity, Self-Confidence (GE 1995). These values would reflect not only in the organisation’s systems and processes but also in GE’s products and services through...
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...Corporate Strategy Analysis: General Electric Co. (1981–present) Stanislav Bucifal Australian National University July 2009 Corporate Strategy Analysis: General Electric Co. (1981–present) Stanislav Bucifal Introduction The General Electric Company (GE) is widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful corporations of the 20th century. This paper aims to critically analyse the corporate strategy of GE during the period from 1981 to present under the leadership of two very different but equally influential CEOs—Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt. The essay is organised in four sections. The first section describes GE’s corporate strategy from 1981 to 2001 with Jack Welch as CEO, followed immediately by a critical analysis of Welch’s strategic approach in the second section. The third section then describes GE’s corporate strategy from 2001 to present with Jeff Immelt as CEO, followed again by a critical analysis of Immelt’s strategic approach in section four. 1. The Jack Welch period (1981–2001) When Jack Welch took up his post as GE’s CEO in 1981 he embarked on a radical transformation of GE’s strategy, ushering in a new era of performance management and internal efficiency. Welch’s profit guidance aimed for earnings growth of 1.5 times to double of the GDP growth rate and his management philosophy found its articulation in GE’s slogan—Speed, Simplicity, Self-Confidence (GE 1995). These values would reflect not only in the organisation’s systems...
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...SME 710 – Service Strategy and Design Case Study 1: GE’s Growth Strategy – The Immelt Initiative Name: Ping Lei Student ID: 10320346 Please prepare an analysis of this case. Your write-up should be 4 to 7 pages. Questions that should be addressed are: 1. How difficult was the task facing Immelt assuming the CEO role in 2001? What imperatives where there to change? What incentives to maintain the past? 2. What do you think of the broad objectives Immelt has set for GE? Can a giant global Conglomerate hope to outperform the overall market growth? Can size and diversity be made an asset rather than a liability? 3. What is your evaluation of the growth strategy (a strategy for a giant global conglomerate with a portfolio of mature industrial businesses) Immelt has articulated? Is he betting on the right things to drive growth? 4. How does this case illustrate how strategic intent needs to be matched by both organizational capability and managerial competence; and show how such assets were developed? 5. Examine how broad strategic objectives can be translated into a program of implement able actions. 6. Demonstrate how Immelt’s strategy went beyond optimization to innovation. 7. Show how this new strategy focused on customers. 8. Analyzes how this new strategy emphased services. Was enough done to balance the portfolio of products and services? 9. After 4 ½ years, did Immelt succeed in his objectives...
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...Robinson Assignment 3: Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies Business 499 February 17, 2014 The business that I chose to research is General Electric. GE is one of the oldest and largest businesses in the United States. They are ranked #26 largest firm in the U.S and the 14th most profitable. GE is a massive, diversified and profitable conglomerate with a lot of very good but unrelated businesses. GE has expanded to incorporate television, airplane engines, medical devices, household appliances and commercial financing. Analyzing GE’s business-level strategy is somewhat difficult being that GE has so many different divisions. Any of these products would serve as a large and viable business on its own but GE has them all under one corporate umbrella. GE’s business level strategy states “GE is building the world by providing capital, expertise and infrastructure for a global economy. GE Capital has provided billions in financing so businesses can build and grow their operations and consumers can build their financial futures. We build appliances, lighting, power systems and other products that help millions of homes, offices, factories and retail facilities around the world work better.” Figure 1 GE’s Organizational Structure and Business Portfolio. 2001 Figure 2 GE’s Organizational Structure and Business Portfolio. 2007 What is most important to the long-term success of GE is long term growth and investing in innovative opportunities that are closely...
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...over the years, most notably its management style, massive size, ability to constantly adapt, and major acquisitions over the years. Throughout the 20th century, they have not only been one of the world’s biggest industrial corporations, but also a “model of management.” GE’s history with acquisitions has been very beneficial to them. Their slogan, “Imagination at Work”, is enforced in GE’s world and ideal creations: “healthymagination” and “ecoimagination.” These concepts have been leading GE’s innovative direction over the years. GE’s most influential leader Jack Welch became its CEO in 1981 and served the company for two decades. He led one of the most comprehensive strategic and organizational strong changes in GE. Known as a strict individual, his management style was firm and mostly confrontational. Managers had to commit to high targets and develop efficient ways to meet them. To evaluate how managers and divisions were doing, there was continuous performance reviews. It was mostly based on quantitative targets allowing focus and accountability. Welch also emphasized management development and career planning aiding internally developed leadership; one of GE’s key strengths. Mr. Welch reformulated GE’s business portfolio through huge exit from the extractive and manufacturing businesses and moved to areas,...
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...GE’s Imagination Breakthroughs: The Evo Project Company Overview * General Electric (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate corporation formed by the merger of Edison General Electric Company and Thomson-Houston Electric Company in 1892. GE has grown over the years through innovation (from R&D) as well as mergers and acquisitions. * On September 2001, Jeff Immelt became GE’s ninth CEO in its 109-year history. The terrorist attack on September 11 - four days after his appointment destroyed the world trade center towers and caused huge turmoil in the economy. As expected stock market dropped drastically and this led to a drop in confidence that spread rapidly around the globe. * During this economy downturn, the environment was generally bad for most companies to do business and GE was not exempted. By the end pf 2002, GE’s revenue had declined by 3% from prior year and its stock prices had plunged drastically as compared to previous years and all-time high. Immelt identified it was not a great year to be a CEO. * Immelt predecessor Jack Welch had an excellent track record; under his leadership GE had generated a total return to shareholders of 23% per annum for 20 years consecutively. With most of this successes attributed to a disciplined, efficient and consistent operations management aswell as acquisitions. Immelt realized Welchs’ brilliant success stories were a difficult one to match and had to come up with a different strategy to grow in this...
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...the similarities and the differences between GE’s traditional innovation and reverse innovation? GE’s, as most of MNE’s, used to innovate in rich countries and after sold those in emerging country; this the traditional way of innovation. However, they began a new strategy called reverse innovation. It is just the opposite. It is about innovating in the emerging country and then bringing those to the rest of the world, richer. The base is still the same as a traditional innovation, they create something new to be the first and win the market, which may doesn’t exist yet. But the reverse innovations are first adapted to the needs of the emerging country like China and India. The greatest difference is to be low price. When the product is well launched they bring it to the rich country and create a new market with low-cost innovative goods, which doesn’t exist in the western country. Thanks to the rapid development of populous countries like China and India and the slowing growth of wealthy nations, reverse innovation has become a strategic priority. 2/ Why is GE’s interested in reverse innovation? Because of their financial situation and their brutal recession, GE’s needed to find a new strategy to develop their products. Indeed the market of the rich country is saturated by competitors so it is more and more complicated to enter the market. At contrary the possibilities in the emerging country doesn’t stop to growth. That is why GE’s decided to invest in the reverse innovation...
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...the similarities and the differences between GE’s traditional innovation and reverse innovation? GE’s, as most of MNE’s, used to innovate in rich countries and after sold those in emerging country; this the traditional way of innovation. However, they began a new strategy called reverse innovation. It is just the opposite. It is about innovating in the emerging country and then bringing those to the rest of the world, richer. The base is still the same as a traditional innovation, they create something new to be the first and win the market, which may doesn’t exist yet. But the reverse innovations are first adapted to the needs of the emerging country like China and India. The greatest difference is to be low price. When the product is well launched they bring it to the rich country and create a new market with low-cost innovative goods, which doesn’t exist in the western country. Thanks to the rapid development of populous countries like China and India and the slowing growth of wealthy nations, reverse innovation has become a strategic priority. 2) Why is GE’s interested in reverse innovation? Because of their financial situation and their brutal recession, GE’s needed to find a new strategy to develop their products. Indeed the market of the rich country is saturated by competitors so it is more and more complicated to enter the market. At contrary the possibilities in the emerging country doesn’t stop to growth. That is why GE’s decided to invest in the reverse innovation...
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...Timing Global Leadership Meeting January Session D Compliance review Ongoing throughout year—once per business CEC Corporate Executive Council Quarterly Session C Organizational staffing and succession review April, May Growth Playbook Long-term business strategy June, July Operating Plan Annual strategy, including budget October, November Session E Environment, Health & Safety Ongoing, 25 sessions per year Risk Committee Review environmental, compliance, liquidity, credit, market and event risks Quarterly Operating System—These regular, annual reviews create a cycle of continuous improvement in areas including compliance, environment, health & safety, and people development. Global Leadership Meeting The annual GLM has been a foundation of GE’s management processes for over 35 years. At this session over 600 of GE’s top leaders from around the world spend two days sharing best practices with each other and learning about Jeff Immelt’s key strategic initiatives for the year. This meeting is followed by breakout meetings among the business and function groups to formulate plans on incorporating the strategic imperatives into their overall business plan for the year. Growth Playbook The Growth Playbook sessions...
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...GE’s Growth Strategy: The Immelt Initiative 1. When Immelt took over as CEO of GE, he was faced with many unexpected challenges which caused a need for change. Within 4 days of his first day as CEO, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center occurred. This act caused a huge downturn in the economy as well as in the confidence of consumers worldwide. Immelt immediately saw the need for action on GE’s behalf as he reassured consumers by reaching out to victims, rescue workers, and their families. He also saw the need for financial reassurance and bought 25,000 shares of GE stock on his own personal account. He remained confident that he could keep the constant growth going even in the face of disaster. Soon after the tragedy of the World Trade Center, the Enron scandal became public. As the public was exposed to the corruption that could occur within large, trusted corporations, investors began to shy away from the larger, more complex corporations like GE in fear of the same thing happening and they lose their investments again. This caused Immelt to look into the operations of the company and what was driving the current growth. He had to consider whether the same strategy would still work, which led to the third reason for a need for change. Immelt knew that he was going to have to keep up the growth that former CEO Jack Welch enjoyed, but Immelt could see that the same strategy of depending on growth from productivity was not going to...
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...successful over many recent decades. In GE’s Historical business model, Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt as executives for GE have been focused on trying to expand the business as well as improving performance internally. The key features to GE’s successful business model lies within their organizational culture, core competencies and specific strategies used. GE’s organizational culture is about individual achievement which provides everyone with opportunities to grow themselves as individual such as exercising their responsibilities, integrity and being more creative. GE’s core competencies adds value to the success of its business model as the GE selects best practices and implements them perfectly which will be beneficial to them while promoting future growth. Furthermore, GE aims to become the market leader for the sectors they are profitable in, such as their financial services sector where GE Capital has grown hugely. Changes to the business model and strategy GE focuses on innovating with new business models by listening to what their customers want such as having more flexibility achieved by converting capital investments to operating expenses. Changes have been made in relations to GE’s culture which focuses on providing them with a lean management, speed & competitiveness, commercial intensity and digital capability. These simplified changes are the source for improvement in GE’s operating performance. GE’s current strategy focuses on the areas that are important to...
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...the similarities and the differences between GE’s traditional innovation and reverse innovation? GE’s, as most of MNE’s, used to innovate in rich countries and after sold those in emerging country; this the traditional way of innovation. However, they began a new strategy called reverse innovation. It is just the opposite. It is about innovating in the emerging country and then bringing those to the rest of the world, richer. The base is still the same as a traditional innovation, they create something new to be the first and win the market, which may doesn’t exist yet. But the reverse innovations are first adapted to the needs of the emerging country like China and India. The greatest difference is to be low price. When the product is well launched they bring it to the rich country and create a new market with low-cost innovative goods, which doesn’t exist in the western country. Thanks to the rapid development of populous countries like China and India and the slowing growth of wealthy nations, reverse innovation has become a strategic priority. 2/ Why is GE’s interested in reverse innovation? Because of their financial situation and their brutal recession, GE’s needed to find a new strategy to develop their products. Indeed the market of the rich country is saturated by competitors so it is more and more complicated to enter the market. At contrary the possibilities in the emerging country doesn’t stop to growth. That is why GE’s decided to invest in the reverse innovation...
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...(accounting for 11% of the total revenue), and household appliances (accounting for 6% of the total revenue) to medical imaging (accounting for 12% of the total revenue), business and consumer financing (accounting for 29% of the total revenue), and industrial products (accounting for 10% of the total revenue), it serves customers in more than 100 countries. 2. What is General Electric’s strategy for future? The firm’s strategy for future is to divest consumer-facing assets because of the volatile and highly competitive nature of the consumer facing business, and acquire and boost commercial- facing assets. 3. How does General Electric intend to grow? Does if grow through acquisitions? Yes, the firm grows through acquisitions. Its much-awaited “Alstom” acquisition is set to close halfway through the campaign. The firm’s strategic growth model focuses on building global relationships with sponsors, vendors, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s), and global mid-market corps. Expanding product franchising is also another key aspect of their model. The firm expects a growth in its EPS in both 2015 and 2016 even as it repositions GE capital and expects gains to equal restructuring. 4. What is General Electric’s competitive environment? Who are its main competitors? The worldwide competition in aircraft jet engines and MRO (including parts sales) is intense. Both U.S. and export markets are important. Product development cycles are long...
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...marketplace in which GE had to compete. Welch had to act fast before GE's territory was taken over by global growth from foreign companies. The third challenge was the beginning symptoms of a contracting economy which, by 1982, would become a deep recession. Jack Welch approached the first challenge of taking over from a successful predecessor by deciding that keeping the status quo would not guarantee GE future success. He felt that GE was to be a standard; they needed to be “better than the best”. This fierce drive to restructure the company during the next 5 years, immediately after the organization had barely finished their prior restructuring, also helped solve his other immediate challenge: the economy. He effectively implemented a new strategy, “Fix, Sell, Close.” If a business could be fixed so it could be #1 or #2 in its competing category then it was kept, otherwise the business was sold or closed. In order to prepare for the incoming global competition, Welch decided to part ways with 12 of his 14 previously hired business heads. The new business heads had to fit a certain billing: “strong commitment to the new management values, a willingness to break with the old GE culture, and most of all, an ability to take charge and bring about change." The difference may not have shown in GE’s revenues, with only a 2 billion dollar increase between 1981 and 1985. However, his effectiveness was demonstrated by their growth in operating profits. This represented an increase from 1.6...
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