Strategy at General Electric Company - Article Example

Running Head: STRATEGY AT GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY Strategy at General Electric Company [The Writer’s Name] [The Name of the Institution] Table of Contents Strategy at General Electric Company Introduction Thomas Alva Edison is accredited for his brilliance as an inventor. Often people are unaware about his business acumen and entrepreneurial drive. The General Electric Company traces its beginnings to the Edison Electric Light Company which was founded in 1878. The Edison Electric Light Company was facing intense competition from the Thompson-Houston Electric Company, run by Charles Coffin. It was increasingly difficult for both companies to co-exist and hence the two merged in 1892, to form the General Electric Company. Over the past 129 years, some of the world’s most effective business people have served at the helm of GE, including their current chief executive Jeffrey (Jeff) Robert Immelt. Our project paper will analyze General Electric in terms of their Destiny, Strategy, Culture and Experiences, and how these components have impacted their success. We will then conduct a brand valuation of GE and analyze their financial performances over the last few years. GE’s destiny is not explicitly stated anywhere. Moreover the size of the company and the fact that it has been conducting its business activities for well over a century has made the task of determining GE’s destiny a difficult one for our team. Thomas Alva Edison’s motive for starting the General Electric Company in 1878 was to present his product offerings to the mass market at a financial gain. Jack Welch, the chief executive between 1981 and 2001 was famous for his competitive drive. To maintain a competitive advantage, all of GE’s businesses had to either be number one or two in their field of business. There was no room for failure. Both Edison and Welch were driven primarily by the company’s financial performance. Although profits are important, our project team would like to point out that these do not portray GE’s present destiny accurately. Moreover no company would last long, let alone 129 years if it solely focused on making profits. GE’s destiny has been evolving over the years. However we can see one thing that has been consistent at GE, their constant innovations. This is evident in their “Innovation Timeline”, which shows the various innovative products of GE since 1878. Furthermore, several quotes from GE’s website have helped point us towards what we feel aptly summarizes GE’s destiny. Risks Uncertainty The Assets module is the functional heart of GE's Infrastructure. The implementation of this technology helps Management at all levels, making it simple by removing the uncertainty from other complex systems. The Asset Module Program provides overall project leadership and a single point of contact that works closely with the user and the customer from start to finish. The evolving nature of the workforce today creates a tremendous obstacle for management in assessing and recognizing future challenges in leading their organizations. Identifying future leadership challenges is complicated due to this uncertainty. One of the greatest challenges leaders will face in the coming years is to inspire and motivate their peers and subordinates. Even before Jack Welch became CEO of General Electric in 1981, GE was considered to be one of America’s best run companies. After becoming CEO, Mr. Welch embarked on a three-pronged performance initiative to revolutionize the way things were done at GE: increase competitiveness, emphasize people, and raise the company’s quality. In the first initiative, Mr. Welch sold off unprofitable lines of business and began a “top-down” initiative to make GE a “leaner, rougher, and more competitive organization” (Beam, 1999, 83). A leader must make difficult decisions on a timely basis; procrastination is not in a leader's vocabulary. (Ulrich, 2002, 22-24) Other qualities present in a leader with edge are the ability to encourage direct reports to take risk and provide positive feedback regardless of outcome; possess the ability to be truthful and direct if the job is not getting done and be able to take responsibility and ownership when something goes wrong. 1-Strategy as Rational Thought For many years GE’s focus has been on productivity leadership. Immelt’s tenure at GE has been characterized with breaking traditional norms. The company has embarked on a new challenge – to generate organic growth. Immelt believes that the world is changing and a company has to be able to generate their own growth in order to step up to the challenges of operating in a slow-growth environment. Although productivity and quality are important, GE has set out to create a culture of innovation. GE has also set a goal of growing 2-3 times the growth rate of world GDP through organic growth. To achieve this, a Six-Part Framework with the New Initiatives, consisting of customers, innovation, great technology, commercial excellence, globalization and growth leaders, has been put in place (elaborated on below). Apart from innovation and growth, Immelt believes that the more successful their customers are the more successful GE will be. Improving customers’ productivity has thus become a critical part of their performance evaluations. In the Six-Part Framework, the Customer aspect focuses on using GE's process expertise to satisfy its customers and drive their growth. GE uses the "Net-Promoter Score" metric which uses a simple measurement – the percentage of customers who say they would recommend GE to other companies minus those who would not. Innovation places emphasis on idea generation and developing capabilities, translating them into reality. To drive innovation GE has a long-term commitment to R&D, and has invested heavily in it. The R&D budget for 2006 was a whopping US$3.7 billion. GE also uses outside stakeholders to generate ideas that translate into innovations. For instance, GE practices using "Customer Dreaming Sessions”. This involves assembling a group of the most influential and creative people in an industry to envision GE’s future provoke change and provide inspiration for new plans. Another practice employed is "Imagination Breakthroughs" which focuses top management’s attention and resources on promising ideas for new revenue streams from within the organization. (Lewis, 2000) This segment highlights GE's long term focus on product leadership through constant improvement of their products, content and services. GE believes that new products should have the ability to evolve with customers’ needs. Ecomagination , a US$150 billion growth strategy started in the year 2005, highlights GE’s focus on producing outstanding products that benefit customers and society in an ecologically friendly way. This initiative reflects GE’s increased emphasis on clean technology and will hopefully result in improved products which in turn will benefit bottom line results. GE constantly produces technological innovations while focusing equally on their successful execution and implementation. Commercial Excellence puts emphasis on what the company acknowledges has been a weakness – developing world-class sales and marketing talent. Marketing is now an aligned function within the organization. GE is committed to hiring the best marketers and demonstrating the value of GE to the market. Globalization focuses on developing market-specific products within the region in which they will be sold. This is especially important in developing countries where there is a need for new products to be inexpensive. Success requires products designed from scratch for the local market rather than stripping down versions of those sold in more developed countries. (Krajewski and Ritzman, 2002) GE is committed to creating such opportunities everywhere and expanding into developing global markets. Growth Leaders emphasize on developing leadership traits that drive innovation and growth. (Howell, 2000) In order to identify the key traits of a leader and a culture that enables and drives growth, GE has benchmarked companies which have demonstrated exemplary track records of organic growth (e.g. Toyota and Dell). Their research has identified the five traits of a leader and has incorporated them into their training and development programs. The five key characteristics are a) external focus, b) imagination and creativity, c) decisive and capable of clear thinking, d) inclusiveness and e) deep domain expertise. (Lynch, 2000) 2-Strategy as Revolution In terms of revolutionary change in brand equity, both GE and Philips have shown an almost similar trend. This could be due to the coincidental change of CEO of both companies in 2001. Both CEOs implemented a series of structural changes to the company. Philips’ turn from 2003 to 2004 was mainly caused by the CEO’s cost trimming efforts and strategic alliances with their competitors in the semiconductors business. Similar to GE, Philips changed their slogan in 2005 from “Let’s Make Things Better” to “Sense of Simplicity”. Philips also beefed up their marketing and communication efforts. All in all, the CEO of Philips, Gerard Kleisterlee streamlined Philips’ businesses to four main units – lighting, medical, consumer electronics and domestic appliances, so as to keep resources focused. (Parhizgar, 2002) The company is also currently working towards bringing innovative solutions to their customers. Due to exemplary management, GE’s brand value currently exceeds that of its competitor Philips by ten times. (Cushman, 2003) In 2003, GE brought revolution and changed its slogan to “Imagination at Work” and at the same time changed its black and white logo into a variety of 14 colors. This helped communicate GE’s shifting focus towards innovation. Immelt also invested substantially in advertising. According to Immelt, in today’s context marketing is essential for GE to increase its brand and product awareness. This was the rationale behind GE launching eight different television advertisements in January 2003, highlighting areas such as wind, energy, water, security and healthcare. These television advertisements aimed to portray the multi-business scope of GE as well as its focus on innovation and technology leadership. Industry practices and consumer expectations have changed post 9/11. Moreover every company is faced with increased scrutiny and general public distrust after malpractices such as those demonstrated in the Enron Scandal. Investors have become more skeptical and the public image of all large companies has taken a hit, making it imperative for them to disclose more information and become more transparent. (Stein, 1998) GE’s brand equity has shown an upward trend from 2002 to 2006. The increase from 2003 to 2004 was especially significant at a magnitude of 18.8%. This is mainly due to the launch of GE’s new slogan, “Imagination at work”, coupled with their increased US$150 million advertising budget. The aim of the communications was to inform the public that GE is a company which values innovation and creativity. The success of their communications was proven by a research done after the campaign which showed that people attributed innovation, creativity and a leading-edge to GE1. In addition to their new positioning, words like trustworthy and reliability continued to portray GE in the minds of the consumers. This clearly illustrated the effect of the new slogan. Rather than cannibalizing on the previous image of GE, the new campaign value added and caused an increased in GE’s overall brand equity. GE’s brand equity subsequently increased at an average rate of 8% per annum. This increase was attributable primarily to their communication efforts and new innovative initiatives made by the company. Additionally the Ecomagination initiative announced in 2005 could have contributed to the increase in brand equity from 2005 to 2006 by about 9%. In contrast the brand equity of GE’s competitor Philips had remained low when compared to GE. In 2002 GE’s brand equity was about six times that of Philips. By 2006 it was around 10 times Phillips’ brand equity. Philips’ lower brand equity can be attributed towards poor management. As a conglomerate, it had dwelled into many businesses and was not able to find strength in any one of them. It was once described as “one of the last great misunderstood conglomerates of Europe”. (Northcraft, 2002) The management at Philips at that point had low credibility. Their resistance to change had resulted in failure to tackle problems such as brand inconsistency and the inability to gain foothold in the US market. Post Jack Welch – It isn’t without reason that Fortune Magazine named Welch manager of the century in 1999. GE grew its revenues from US$27 billion to US$130 billion during Welch’s tenure as CEO. Moreover the company’s market value grew by almost US$500 billion under him. Indeed GE’s success has been pegged to Welch’s ability as a manager, leaving GE’s future uncertain after his retirement. However, based on our evaluation, Jeff Immelt has done an overall good job filling in Welch’s shoes. Exposure to Global Economy: Over 50% of GE’s revenues are generated from overseas, making GE vulnerable to global economic threats such as currency fluctuations. GE operates in the conglomerate industry which is very diverse. This diversity makes it tough for them to be the market leader in every field. On top of that the constant change in technology heats up the competition, resulting in an increased need of research and development to bring about technological advancements. GE’s large size is both strength and a weakness. On one hand it has a global presence while on the other hand it makes it harder to implement decisions and execute communications across all the 160 countries that GE operates in. This might result in a delayed reaction to shifts in the market. GE has focused on research and development since 1900 and has its own Global Research Centre (GRC). With over 2500 employees and a US$5.7 billion budget, the GRC is where GE “strives to drive new technology breakthroughs”. These translate into product development and improvement, enabling GE to stay ahead of the competition. 3-Strategy as Resource Allocation and Accumulation When looking for a fit in GE’s culture, the prospective employees must be passionate about their work and inquisitive about things around them. This will ensure a better fit into the innovative environment at GE. Furthermore the prospective employee has to be resourceful and accountable since GE believes firmly in leadership and empowerment. GE also promotes internal diversity by encouraging employees to be open to other cultures and languages. Being open has enabled employees to become more socially active through increased volunteer work etc, which is firmly in line with the company’s philanthropic nature. (Vasu, 1998) Due to the company’s belief in continuous learning and leadership, GE is committed in investing in its employees and providing challenging opportunities to shape their careers. Doing so helps augment their leadership and resource ambassador aspects in the brand ambassador evaluation which helps them become future global leaders. (Miller, 2002) GE spends US$1 billion annually on training and development. Currently there are three types of training: 1) Entry-level Leadership Programs, 2) Experienced leadership Programs and 3) The John Welch Leadership Development Centre (for higher level positions). These three training programs provide training to develop employees’ leadership and professional skills throughout their career with GE. In addition to these, GE also provides other training programs such as the mentoring program to help employees in their personal and professional growth. GE also uses employee performance feedback and counseling to help the employees set short term and long term career goals through coaching and planning. This enables them to excel in their careers. Due to its size and diversity, GE has organized itself in a hierarchical manner. Along with Immelt’s strategy to create a business portfolio for long term growth, GE has embarked on acquisitions with strong growth prospects (for example bioscience, security, entertainment) and has divested in the unprofitable businesses such as insurance in January 2004. GE’s businesses are categorized into either “growth businesses” or “cash generators” . In 2005 the 11 businesses were further narrowed down to 6 (namely GE Industrial, GE Infrastructure, GE Healthcare, NBC Universal, GE Commercial Finance and GE Money) . This was done to streamline GE’s businesses and to focus more on the profitable ones. As we can see from the top executives of GE such as Immelt and Trotter, most of them have had to climb up the corporate ladder within the company. The appointment of Immelt has led to an introduction of talent from outside, thus moving from the conventional method of internal promotions. These new talents were mostly recruited in the sales and marketing department to bring about further innovation at GE. Immelt’s new strategies focus on innovation rather than bottom-line results. To bring about this change, several initiatives were taken such as the flexibility to make mistakes. This provides a stark contrast to the previous CEO’s policy where managers who underperformed were fired. In recent times GE has reorganized and aligned their businesses to better meet their customers’ needs. GE has created an offering “At the Customer, for the Customer” that takes Six Sigma to their customers by focusing on customer productivity and value adding services, thereby helping their customers to become more successful. (Nelson, 2006) In addition, Immelt also encourages employees to build stronger relations with the customers and increase familiarity with the market. Furthermore Immelt believes in meeting up with customers regularly to remain updated on the latest happenings outside GE. This allows him to take the right steps and capitalize on the opportunities available to communicate GE’s value to the customers. GE has also worked its way into web marketing with web banners featured in the homepages of established search engines such as Yahoo and MSN. In line with the web banners, GE has created an interactive web page which allows users to click and drag a pencil to sketch pictures. With GE’s efforts in communicating its new slogan, customers are able to connect with GE. GE has invested substantially in positioning its brand to enhance the GE experience. The GE brand has come to reflect a well reputed organization with an active contribution in society. GE’s contribution to the society is mainly in the fields of education and the environment. The GE foundation recently contributed US$22 million to the Atlanta public schools to revamp mathematics and science learning for the young children. As for environment, GE’s contribution is clearly demonstrated through their Ecomagination initiative. GE is well regarded both as a company and as an employer. It has attained awards ranging from “Fortune America’s Most Admired Company” to “Top 100 Best Company for working mothers.” These recognitions have proven the worth of the GE brand and have contributed positively to the GE experience. GE is also one of the largest corporations in the world. Within its industry, they have the highest market capitalization of US$390.6 billion. Their total shares outstanding amount to a value of 10.1 billion and their earnings per share is US$2.10. The company’s total assets stand at US$697.2 billion. The raw figures indicate GE as being a multi-billion dollar corporation and a closer look at the financial analysis reveals that the company is also built on a sturdy platform. Over the past 10 years, the net profits of GE have been increasing steadily. The average earnings growth for GE has been 10% annually for the past few years. The revenues have also increased on the whole, but with a few ups and downs as a result of direct impact from the environment in which the company operates. In the financial year 2001, GE’s operations were affected by factors such as the changing economy, volatile political situations and the impact of September 11 attacks. This resulted in lower revenues for that financial year. Improvements in the business environment increased the company’s revenues. In 2004, the revenues increased could be attributed towards profitable strategic acquisitions and mergers of companies such as Amersham (in the healthcare industry) and Vivendi Universal Entertainment (in the media and entertainment industry). The profitability ratios of GE have generally been higher as compared to the industry average. Their gross profit margin of 43.23% is much greater than the industry average of 28.34%. A high value indicates that the company is better at managing its direct costs. The operating margin stands at 15.72%, only slightly higher than the industry average of 15.04%. Similarly, the net profit margin of GE is 13.17%, higher than the industry average of 11.49%. (Thompson, 2007) The operating and net profit margins include the overheads and total costs for the company in their calculations. These figures are not as high as when compared to the industrial averages. This indicates that the company may have relatively higher indirect costs as compared to direct costs. Overall GE has performed better than the industry average and the net profit margins over the past years have generally been on the rise. GE has a much larger gap and hence is vulnerable to rising interest rates, which is especially relevant for large multinational company. However, companies characterized by stable cash flows can safely carry more debt than can companies whose cash flows follow volatile trends. (Robbins, 2005) Additionally, having a high interest coverage ratio indicates improved ability to carry debt. Thus for GE, stable cash flows and high interest coverage ratio ensures that it is financially strong and less likely to be impacted by rising interest rates. Generally the long term borrowings have been increasing, with a sharp rise in the year 2002. The sharp rise is attributable to the debt that the company has taken for spending in R&D, marketing and its Ecomagination campaign. 4-Strategy as Technology Leadership Today GE is a diversified media, technology and financial services company with products and services ranging from medical imaging, industrial products, business financing and media content to water processing, security technology, power generation and aircraft engines. GE is one of the largest organizations in the world, operating in over 160 countries with over 300,000 employees (including over 2500 researchers in their four global research centers) and yearly revenues reaching US$163 billion (2006). Over the last five years GE has grown its earnings on an average of over ten percent per annum. GE earned US$20.7 billion in 2006 and has returned over US$18 billion to its shareholders in the form of dividend increases and stock buyback. Immelt was appointed CEO in the year 2001 after spending nineteen years in various global leadership positions in GE (including roles in GE's Plastics, Appliance, and Medical businesses). His focus has been on turning the company into one that is “steeped in creativity and wired for growth”. Immelt also serves on the board of three non-profit organizations (namely Catalyst, devoted to advancing women in business, Robin Hood, focused on addressing poverty in New York City, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank). Vice Chairman (President and CEO of GE Commercial Finance) Michael A. Neal is recognized for planning and implementing core organic growth strategies and globally building GE Commercial Finance. Mr. Neal joined GE in 1979 and has since climbed up the corporate ladder in the Commercial Finance sector. He became general manager of Commercial Equipment Finance (CEF) in 1990. Under Neal, CEF became the world's largest supplier of middle-market financing and one of GE's most profitable businesses. He was appointed President and CEO of GE Commercial Finance in 2002 and vice chairman of General Electric in 2005. President of NBC Universal Integrated MediaBeth Comstock was appointed president of NBC Universal Integrated Media in 2005, after serving various positions in GE. In 2003 she was appointed Corporate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Beth faced the challenge of transforming GE's culture to one that is powered by idea generation and innovation. This role required her to oversee commercial excellence and development of the marketing functions across GE. She was GE's first Chief Marketing Officer in over 20 years. One of her biggest achievements entailed transforming GE's brand through the successful "Imagination at Work" and "Ecomagination" campaigns. Furthermore she developed the Imagination Breakthrough innovation effort to drive organic growth across GE. Beth has won numerous awards and recognition such as the 2006 Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications. GE firmly believes in innovation, leadership and volunteerism. Being a company with more than 300,000 employees, GE considers their employees as their greatest asset. The culture at GE influences the way they go about hiring and training employees. The GE experience is to deliver on its promise through quality products, strengthening customer relationships, a strong communications plan, and strategically positioning the brand. GE has an established history in ensuring product and process excellence through the implementation of Six Sigma. Within process excellence, GE has reduced the number of days required for machine installation from sixty-five to fifteen, providing customers with quality service and improved efficiency. This efficiency has translated into improved product and service quality which is enjoyed by their customers. GE has delivered in terms of satisfying their customer’s needs by offering quality products and services. GE’s culture of innovation has brought about the Ecomagination initiatives that have helped develop environmentally friendly products which aim to solve the problem of scarcity and pollution. With innovation and customer-focused initiatives, GE has created and delivered new products and solutions that benefit their customers. Porter’s Five Forces Model According to Porter, there are five competitive forces that affect an industry and these are: competitive rivalry, threat of entry, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of suppliers, and the bargaining power of the buyers. Competitive Rivalry GE faces many rivals in the competitive market, yet it has to survive due to its solid goodwill and successful marketing and competitive strategies. New electric firms attract their customers with their incentives, yet GE still holds a distinctive place among its rivals. GE has faced competitive rivalry with ever changing policies and strategies which proved successful. Threat of New Entrants This gives the possibility that new firms will enter the industry and through offering lower prices competition will raise more. Brand identity is important in the electrical appliances industry, and benefits major firms. If a new electric company entrants the market that is also specialized in the same appliances and goods that GE offers, GE than might face competition. To tackle this competition it is important to offer better customer service, better price and quality of the packages. Threat of Substitutes It is likely that someone will switch to a competitive product or service. Here are a few factors that can affect the threat of substitutes: Likely substitutes for electric firms who only offer small household electrical goods, also as GE main products are available in a variety of range based on customer’s buying power and capacity. Bargaining Power of Suppliers This is how much stress suppliers can lay on a business. If one supplier has a huge enough force to impinge on a company's volumes and margins, then they hold considerable command. In the electric appliances field, there are different firms and companies. These electric firms and companies understand that the product they sell is extremely important to the buyer and that they can not do without it, this is also another reason why suppliers might have power over the buyers. Bargaining Power of Buyers This element of Porter’s five forces analysis depicts how much force customers can exercise upon a business. If one customer has an extensive and decisive shock to influence a company's volumes and margins, then they hold significant command. Buyers can easily switch to another electric firm who sells similar goods and appliances for a lower price. Customers are price sensitive; if for a reason they find that GE offers electrical appliances that are overpriced in the competitive market. Game theory "In simple terms, it is a set of complex mathematical formulae that shows how decisions affect each other, by offering a comprehensive explanation of how interdependent individuals, corporations, and governments make strategic choices" (McMillan, 1991, 20-23). In the business discipline, game theory deals with how to cooperate and compete with customers, suppliers, complementors and substitutors with profound consideration. Game theory is based on some hypotheses but in reality, maybe, the conditions of games don't match the hypotheses. For instances, game theory assumes all players are rational and believe others are rational (De Wit and Meyer, 2005, 114-23). It is almost impossible in every occasion of business game. Additionally, as the number of players increases, the model of game theory becomes more complicated. At G.E. after the executives consider what kind of game they get involved in, they can make the strategy for their target and even change the game. The primary implication of game theory to the business is changing game to make profit. It is very different from traditional opinion (Murdoch, 1999).In the traditional opinion, executives were taught to make the strategies for target within the game rules. According to (Camerer, 2003, 88-90) game theory is most effective in the scenarios where there are only limited players and players behave in rational ways. Conclusion In the age of globalization, every organization needs to maximize its efficiency in order to survive. However, simply generating profits is not sufficient for the success of an organization in the long term. It is no different for GE as the company will continue innovating new products and services that solve “the world’s biggest problems” rather than just focusing on their bottom line. In addition to being an admired and successful company, GE also recognizes the importance of social responsibility. Immelt has taken the necessary steps to streamline GE so as to sustain its long run profitability. Some experts would say these steps are rather bold as Immelt has broken the traditional GE way of doing things. Under the leadership of Immelt, GE is moving in a new direction that ensures its success for many years to come. Traditionally GE had grown through acquisitions and has ignored organic growth. Under Immelt however GE has begun realizing the importance of Organic Growth. Given that GE’s operations have already expanded near a saturation point, there is a pressing need for GE to augment internal growth. Organic Growth enables GE to become even better in sectors where they are already good. Under Immelt, GE has improved its customer service. To Immelt the customer’s are the reason that GE is in business. By keeping the customers informed, not only does GE gain their goodwill, but also gains their trust. This is important as people are normally distrustful towards larger organizations. Through the Ecomagination initiatives, GE aims to carry out all its activities in an environmentally friendly way, thus mitigating its impact on the environment. This has assumed immense importance, given the rising environmental concerns. These initiatives not only portrays the company in a good light but also helps GE make headway towards solving the world’s biggest problems such as pollution. References Beam H. (1999). Jack Welch and the GE Way. Business Review, 42(3), 83. Camerer, C. (2003). Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 88-90 Create Competitive Advantage, 2nd edition, London: Thomson; 114-23 Cushman, D. P. (2003) Communication Best Practices at Dell, General Electric, Microsoft, and Monsanto. SUNY Press. De Wit, B. & R.J.H. Meyer (2005), Strategy Synthesis: Resolving Strategy Paradoxes to Howell, J. P., Landrum, N. 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