Assessment Task

1. In what ways has Jeff Immelt redirected the strategy of GE?              (25%)
2. To what extent is the strategy aligned with
3. The requirements of the 21^st century business environment?
4. GE’s resources & capabilities?                                                  (30%)
5. What organisational changes has the new strategy necessitated? Will GE be able to successfully execute the new strategy?                                     (20%)
6. What alternative strategies should GE consider?                                (25%)

Target word count 3,000 + or – 10% (excluding appendices)

The case will be made available on NILE

Solution:

1.0 Introduction

Taking into account of company background, General Electric Company (GE) lifespan averages at 125 years as it started in 1892 after a merger of Thomas Edison’s Electric Light Company and the Thomas Houston Company (Grant, 2016). Its operations have been characterised by global business turmoil’s, widespread economic recession and great depression. As noted by GE (2015), to survive in these challenges, the company has adopted a diversification process which is aimed at guiding the company to leverage on existing opportunities to gain more market share. This is attained at the expense of the pure-play rival in crisis moments. To affirm this, the company has ventured into a broad array of business ventures which include healthcare, housing and business solutions, transportation, energy, aviation and the capital business. Additionally, the business has already established a niche in the academic sector where they partner with private and government institutions. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that all these practices are all founded on the quality and effective leadership that is established on research and development strategies (Hodgkinson et al., 2009). In a similar line, GE (2013) noted that GE tends to integrate core competencies of innovation, technology aspects, globalization, customer-centric services delivery and extensive products and services delivery. This report would be categorised into the approaches in which Jeff Immelt redirected the strategy of GE, alignment of the strategy with the requirements of the 21^st-century business environment and GE’s resources and capabilities, organisational changes on the new strategy. Lastly, the available strategies that GE should be put into considerations would be provided.

2.0 Analysis

2.1 Jeff Immelt Redirection of GE Strategy

The strategy direction/re-direction is comprised of two decisions which are where to compete (industry & market) and how to compete. To affirm this, Litov et al. (2012) argued that strategy direction/redirection involve where to compete which are the corporate portfolio management and growth options. Also, organisations tend to engage in competition for sourcing a competitive advantage.

2.2.1 Industry and Market

To understand how Jeff Immelt has redirected the business strategy, it is ideal to consider the BCG Matrix. According to Loana et al. (2009), this is designed in helping modern entities in considering growth opportunities through a review of their portfolio of produces to make reliable decisions on investment, discontinue or developing new products.  Table 1 below shows GE BCG Matrix;

Figure 1: GE BSG Matrix

Source: Author Taking into account of the figure 1 above, it demonstrates the decision taken by Jeff Immelt in terms of market to capitalise and make investments and the ones to divest or have minimal investments. For the star, this represent……………………………………………………………………..Please click the paypal icon below to download this solution for only $20