Competitive Strategy and Innovation at General Electric: Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of General Electric (GE), a multinational conglomerate, focusing on its competitive strategy and innovation. It begins with an overview of GE, its mission, vision, and core competencies, highlighting its diverse business portfolio across sectors like energy, healthcare, and aviation. The report delves into the leadership of Jeff Immelt, examining his strategic shifts, including a focus on customer service, innovation, and employee motivation. It analyzes how GE aligns its strategies with the requirements of the 21st-century business environment, considering political, economic, social, and technological factors. The report also discusses changes implemented to support these strategies, such as performance management adjustments and organizational restructuring. It emphasizes the importance of innovation, product development, and adapting to consumer needs. Overall, the report offers insights into GE's adaptation to the changing business landscape, providing a detailed overview of its strategic approaches and leadership transformations.

Running head: COMPETITIVE STRATEGY AND INNOVATION
Competitive strategy and Innovation: General Electronics
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
About the company......................................................................................................................2
Mission and vision.......................................................................................................................2
Jeff Immelt as the CEO and chairman of GE..............................................................................3
Alignment of the strategies with the requirements of the 21st century business environment.......5
Aims and objectives of the company in the 21st century.............................................................5
Changes to implement the strategy..................................................................................................8
Alternative strategies should GE consider.....................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
Reference list:................................................................................................................................14
Appendix 1:...................................................................................................................................16
Appendix 2:...................................................................................................................................17
Appendix 3:...................................................................................................................................18
Appendix 4:...................................................................................................................................19
Appendix 5:...................................................................................................................................20

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Introduction
About the company
General Electric or popularly known as GE is a multinational conglomerate corporation
that was established in the year 1892. Over the years of operation the company has gained
goodwill and reputation from the stakeholders. The products and services that are offered by the
company are varied including some of the sectors like: energy supply, aircraft engines, power
generation, and oil and gas production equipment to medical imaging, financing and industrial
products. The customers of the organization are as widespread as 180 countries. The company
has been awarded as the fourth largest international company by Forbes in the year 2012
(Bolman and Deal 2017). The industries that the company operates in are: healthcare,
electronics, transportation, aviation, power and also capital. The company has shed the mantel of
the traditional business model and has recently adopted the model of triple bottom line, which
has enabled the company develop a sustainable business model (Ge.com 2017).
Mission and vision
The company encourages innovation as the tagline reads “imagination at work”. The
vision of the company is to offer the consumers with product and services that ensures integrity
and compliance. The company works on the motto of the best elements of speed, scale and
flexibility as stated by former chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt.

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Core competencies of the organisation
 The organisation incorporates the strategies that are most pertinent to the
immediate future and growth of the organisation
 The organisation has been successful in adapting to the dynamics of the industry
and the market that it operates in
 The leaders and the human resource of the organisation are one of the major
competencies of the organisation
 Traditions and legacies in the organisation are still carried forward
Competition
Owing to the various business portfolio of the organisation, the competition of the
company is also distributed. Siemens is regarded as one of the biggest competitors of the
organisation.
Changes redirected by Jeff Immelt
Under the leadership of Jeff Immelt the organisation has flourished to achieve new
heights. Since 2001 Jeffrey R. Immelt has served as the chairman and CEO of general
electronics. Integrity and creativity has always been the undertone of the business and leadership
styles that is encouraged by General Electric. These operations of the company are handled by
the leaders and managers present in the business who are regarded to be one of world’s best
leaders. Chief Executive Officer, General Manager, General Council, and Vice President form
the management structure of the company. According to Jeff Immelt, general electric is a

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“connected industrial company”. Jeff Immelt redirected the ways of the company by following
the dynamic of the business environment. Before being the chairman and CEO of the company
Jeff was heading the GE Appliances, GE Plastics, and GE Medical Systems. He gained goodwill
and earned good reputation for the company by focusing on customer services and development
of innovative and new technologies. The strategy that has been implemented by Immelt is a
combination of innovation, increased productivity and customer service (Hill et al. 2014).
One of the main features that are observed in the leadership style of Jeff is motivation of
the employees. He closely worked with the employee and worked hard to understand the
challenges and grievances faced by him. He had a friendlier approach towards leadership. His
style of leadership can be defined as a transactional and transformational leadership. He believes
that the employees are the backbone of the organization and the management has to work with
the staff and not ahead of the staff. With the help of motivational tactics he used a lot of effort to
understand and help the employees to develop commitment towards the company. As the
approach of leadership of Immelt is very different form the CEO and chairman before him, he
quickly gained popularity among the employees of GE. He has been described as the “man-of-
the-people” as he has the ability to understand and think from the perspective of the person
(Mihalache et al. 2014). This has made him approachable for a person who is in the highest
management to a person working on the ground level. In order to maintain the stability in the
new millennium the varied portfolio of businesses of GE was regarded as a way to stabilize the
business cycle. Immelt has highlighted the merits of a portfolio of businesses which curved the
instability of individual businesses. In other words the diverse portfolio helped in filling for the
gaps of the businesses that was in trouble (Bolman and Deal 2017). He promoted diversity and
emphasized the importance, in the annual report of 2014. Healthcare, under his guidance

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received a major product development and geographical expansion. Energy is the oldest portfolio
in the business and one of the major changes that have taken place in this segment under the
leadership of Immelt was alternative energy. There were also significant changes in the
broadcasting and communication department along with development in the technological
infrastructure (Eden and Ackermann 2013).

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Alignment of the strategies with the requirements of the 21st century business environment
Here is a list of requirements that are required in the 21st century business environment:
Political: As a multinational conglomerate the leaders of the organisation has to keep up
with the different political background of the countries. The company has to follow up with
the rules and regulations of the country to ensure smooth operation of business.
Economic: there are several developing economies that have opportunities for the
company. The company has distribution but the operations can also be expanded in several
region depending on the.
Society: Acceptance of the business portfolio of the company in the society is important.
The company should understand the requirement and the behavior of the consumer in
order to grow and expand in the future. The importance of the consumer feedback and
need has increased in the 21st century as
Technology: Technological development has taken place in leaps and bounces in the 21st
century and as discussed one of the core competencies of the organisation is adaptation to
the changes the organisation has adapted to changes in various departments especially in
customer care services.
The leadership style that has been analyzed is transformational and transactional which is
a change from the former style of being authoritative. The strategies that are taken by the
company are more sustainable in nature and are more consumers centric.

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Integrated solutions to customer issues are being developed by the company is another
strategy that is applied by the company. Immelt has always emphasized the focus of the product
or services towards consumers.
Customer service development, the importance of spending time with customers,
developing a healthy relationship with the customers, and working on their grievances are one of
the prime concentrate of the company.
Creation of value was changed from providing the support as the objective of consumer
services. The technological environment in the 21st century of the company has advanced which
has enabled the consumers to give direct feedbacks to the services and products almost
immediately. Technology has also helped the customers to be connected to the management and
marketing team of the company to be able to communicate the problems and grievances as soon
as it occurs. Customer service is the prime focus of all top companies of the world, due to
globalization companies are open to operate all around the globe and expand their market. Hence
the target markets of the companies are also changing depending on the external environment of
the country that it is operating (Goetsch and Davis 2014).
The changes in the target market are utilized by the company as an opportunity to
enhance and expand the potential market in a specific country and in order to do that the
company has to be consumer oriented and should think from the perspective of the consumers of
the business. And the company is willing to use this change as its advantage in understanding the
requirement of the customers, dealing with the issues they are facing in order to create value for
the company in terms of goodwill and reputation.

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Another strategy that has been observed in the case study to be at par with the
requirements of the 21st century is innovation and product development. Innovation does not only
require investment but it also includes substantial risk, Immelt is known for taking risk in
business decision making. As he is a transformational leader he understands the requirements of
the changing business environment. The problem that is observed in the organization that the
innovation decisions were taken on a medium term or short term basis, which lacks
farsightedness and less impact on the future. The innovations is the key to gaining new potential
customers and with the changes in time the requirements of the customers also change, hence
making the process of new product development essential for any organization. Requirements of
the customers should be catered to in order to solve the issue and grievance of the customers as
well (Hornstein 2015).
Changing the structure of the organization is another strategy that is adopted by Immelt
he had made alteration of some of the significant structural changes. Immelt progressively
reorganized. Immelt introduced the segmentation of divisions into a smaller number of broad-
based sectors. This has helped in understanding the hierarchy and reducing the stress and
workload which has improved the communication process. The implementation of the concept of
triple bottom line on the management requires a change in the structure as well as this recognizes
the people associated with the organization as one of the most important factors.
Performance management and leadership development is another strategy that is
implemented to deal with the dynamics of the business environment. Previously in the company
the attributes that are related to the innovation, enterprise selling, and environmental
sustainability were given less importance than factors like cost competence, efficiency, and
profitability. The strategies that were implemented by Immelt posed a challenge to GE’s metrics-

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based performance management system that was observed by the company for a long time. He
emphasized on skill and aptitude development of the managers so that they can keep up with the
changes that are occurring within as well as outside the business.
Some of factors of growth aspects that were being focused on are as follows: External
focus, imagination and creativity, decisiveness and clear thinking ability, inclusiveness, and deep
“domain expertise” (knowledge of the particular business). The company included performance
management and production efficiency theories like lean and six-sigma in practice so as to
ensure that a person can offer maximum productivity (Sepahi et al. 2017).
As discussed one of the core competencies of the organisation are the leaders and the
visionary style of leadership that is incorporated. The changes that are discussed are
implemented by the organisation with the help of the core competencies.

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Changes to implement the strategy
Immelt respected the decisions and policies made by his mentor and predecessor and he
understood the fact that some of these policies were like a tradition in the company and it was
difficult to change such deep rooted values. Some of the organizational change that was imitated
in order to implement the new strategies were:
Performance management was one of the most important changes that were
implemented by Immelt. The CEOs and the higher management of the company were all people
promoted internally and this has been the tradition of the company for ages. The management
promotion and development method together with its financial and strategic planning systems
formed the foundation of GE’s performance management. When Jack Welch was the CEO all
the performance management was been implemented with the help of quantitative analysis that
ensured reliability, Immelt also believed that it was a good way of measurement but what it
lacked is the abstract attributes of the people that is also of equal importance. He was a believer
of the quantitative measures starting from revenues and internal growth achievements to
productivity development decrease in overhead costs and six-sigma quality. Along with these he
also included in the performance metrics like innovation, enterprise selling, and environmental
sustainability. This will help the company choose the best people to lead the team in the future.
Implementation of strategies such as six sigma and lean production also insures quality in the
performance of the productivity. Channelize the resources of the company in strategic
communication in order to serve the policies and strategies are important (Shanafelt et al.2015).
One of the biggest challenges in this segment is that the company has to ensure that the

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measurement is transparent and clear or else there are chances of internal conflicts among
the staff members.
The new strategy of the company included and customer oriented approach, in order to
develop a value oriented relationship with the customers so that the company can understand the
issues and grievances of the products or services and improve o that field. This included hiring of
talented marketing executives and innovate the process of product development and services in
order to meet the needs of the customers. Providing customized consumer services is also
another strategy that was developed by the company. The grievances and issues faced by the
customers cannot be similar and hence the company recognized this as an aspect that needed to
be worked upon. The challenge that the company might face form this strategy is that the
needs and requirements of the diverse consumer base of GE might be contradictory. It is
also difficult to listen to all the issues and make changes.
Skill development of the people involved in the customer care service was initiated by
the company several departments were set up to deal with the diversified requirement of the
customers for example technical services, financial services. Coordination among the sectors of
operation is recognized a as one of the best ways of implementation of the new strategies.
Training and skill development on focused groups of people so that they can specialize in certain
kind of subject and any issues arising in that subject can be tactfully handled by that person. The
performance of the employee can be enhanced effectively with the help of such a training
program. The organizational changes that were the central idea of Immelt are improving the
capability of the company to provide better services to the customers with the help of integrated
(Jacobs et al. 2015). Time management is the biggest barrier in this case the company
should ensure that the people who are engaged in skill development should be able to