GE's Digital Transformation Strategy

This assignment examines General Electric's (GE) transformation into a digitally driven company. It analyzes the factors driving this change, such as competition and technological advancements. The document highlights GE's adoption of digital manufacturing techniques, the role of 'Industrial Internet' in its success, and the challenges faced during the transition to a software-focused business model. Ultimately, it explores the implications of GE's digital strategy for the future of the company.

Running head: GE’S WORKING PATTERN EVALUATION
GE’s Working Pattern Evaluation
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1GE’S WORKING PATTERN EVALUATION
Factors driving GE’s transformation:
Various factors are involved in the transformation of the General Electrics, and they
have been mentioned as follows:
 The first and foremost factor is their competitive and farsightedness. They tend to
compete with the best in their field of interest. This nature can be deduced from the
statement quoted by Jeffrey R. Immelt when he considered IBM and
Amazon as their competition (Lohr, 2018). The value of data
preservation shows their farsightedness.
 The firm’s dedication over technology to manage their processes is also an enabling
factor for the transformation ("Inside GE’s Transformation", 2018). They are readily
available to adopt the digital wizardry and digital habits.
 The act of learning during operations is also a factor for the transformation.
GE’s digital manufacturing units:
GE has adopted digital methods of doing things, and it is proving to be of excellent
efficiency. The subject is luring engineers who had experience in the IT giants` firms like
Apple, Google and others to change its business model digitally. The firm claims that they
halved the time of production of a gas turbine by equipping digital methods in their producing
unit at Greenville, S.C. (Lohr, 2018). The processes of operation have also
changed with the changing business model. The manual development of
blueprints for the models to be developed has been switched to 3-D
computer models. The manual method took a period of up to 8 weeks and
documentation of nearly 70 + pages for completion, hence saving a lot of
time and effort. The equipment and units are also upgraded to be sensor
enabled. This implication has enabled monitoring of the units even when
they are not in operation. The firm has claimed that in the past three
years they have saved over 530000 hours due to automation (Lohr, 2018).
Hence, it can be stated that adopting digital business model has proved
to be a perk for GE.
Role of digital technology in GE’s transition:
“Industrial Internet” is the term that is enabling innovation in the manufacturing
industry (Bruner, 2013). GE has started to put its time and effort in research and development

2GE’S WORKING PATTERN EVALUATION
of techniques to digitalise their manufacturing units. The taken measures are paying off as
discussed in the section above. The implementation has led to a reduction in the production
time and effort. The sensor-enabled monitoring system has also helped in saving much
money. Predictive maintenance is also a success for the software-driven business model as it
has helped in resolving the flaws before breakdown. The successful implementation of
digitisation has also enabled the firm to step a new field of operation. The firm has started a
software start-up to explore this field of interest and Predix (IoT PaaS) is a result of it.
GE's new software-driven business model, leading to layoffs and stock market losses:
GE brought in William Ruh in 2013 to use his experience and knowledge for the
development of Predix, but things started going other ways (Lohr, 2018). The reason for
the failure of the plans was the firm’s competitive nature. GE tried to get ahead of its
competitor and took some false step that led to a loss in the stock market. The disruption from
the outside was claimed as the reason for the layoff of the software-driven model by the chief
executive Mr Immelt. The company has learnt from the mistake and are now taking small
steps in making significant achievements.

3GE’S WORKING PATTERN EVALUATION
References:
Bruner, J. (2013). Industrial Internet. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
Inside GE’s Transformation. (2018). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 19 January 2018,
from https://hbr.org/2017/09/inside-ges-transformation
Lohr, S. (2018). G.E., the 124-Year-Old Software Start-Up. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 19
January 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/technology/ge-the-124-
year-old-software-start-up.html?
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