HELPPPP PLEASEEEE SMALL CASEE.... case paper should be four to six pages in leng
ID: 451227 • Letter: H
Question
HELPPPP PLEASEEEE SMALL CASEE.... case paper should be four to six pages in length, and include the following: ( IT IS OK IF YOU DONT HAVE THE 4 OR 6 PAGES I CAN WORKOUT THE REST ANY HELP I WILL APPRECIATE...
? Summarize case issues / problems by identifying and stating all issues and recognizing all pertinent factors.
? Analysis / recommendations: Analysis should correctly identify symptoms, causes, important factors, and use terminology fully and correctly. The range of recommendations and solutions should be consistent with the issues.
? Close with concluding paragraph(s) with your overall thoughts about the case.
? The case study response should include content drawn from the textbook, including drawing on the questions presented at the end of the case to address what content to use from the chapter(s) in your response.
If outside sources are included, then cite them and prepare a References page.
Explanation / Answer
The GE’s case focuses particularly on the launch of innovative products, which is a new locomotive answering different needs and requirement of the market and the environment.
It illustrate also the different point of view regarding the growth and innovation strategies hate’s CEO might use to stand up from its economic downturn and the complexity of the industry, and to grow.
In the beginning, during the reign of Jack Welch, GE was following a strategy which I can define it by process oriented; and which I can shelled in 4 main points:
But since Immelt took charge of the head of GE, he knew that he could not continue the same path his predecessor was taken (Welch’s corporate strategy was all about performance and efficiency).Therefore, he decided to be more marketing oriented and give importance to the market value of technological advancements, on the basis of the following points:
Facing a changing environment and economic recession and decreasing revenues (GE’s life cycle situation), he opt for a long term strategy based on organic growth and building internal capacities in changing resource allocation and implementation activities, redesigning the company structure by promoting innovation and risk taking, and also, internal development through heavy investment in cleaner technologies and innovation.
These changes was set up according to a structured timeline, in other words, Immelt start by implementing a new vision of the company based on innovation, culture of big ideas, and risk taking (growth leader). He follow up to assist his vision by reshaping the company structure by adding several positions, promoting incentives programs in the company to engage and inspire more the employees, and recruiting outside talents to strengthen the marketing department which he considered as a spearhead of his strategy. Moreover, he invested heavily on research and development by implementing
Internationalization strategy in R&D facilities such as global research centers in Shanghai, New York, and Munich.
To pursue this gait, Immelt create a system to evaluate each management division and encourage them to come up with an Imagination Breakthrough (IB) which is a result of a rigorous analytical process known as CECOR ,to promote growth in each division, and building new businesses based on high growth and high margin areas.
This changes lead to the success of the technology, by developing the Eva locomotive, which the characteristics are:
These characteristic was supported by a clear identification of the market needs, an efficient lifecycle cost, and sales force rigorous training.
Setting up deep changes, as Imelda did, in a company, are not always successful. As Charles Darwin said: “it’s not the strongest of species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change”. I can understand from this quote, that the changes Immelt implement were inevitable.
Although, GE’s Immelt strategy was a success, against all odds, the company was on the right pace, because of one main factor, an effective communication (Monthly review) was set upthrough an integrated leadership processes. In fact, Immelt empowered his strategy by exploiting markets with great growth potential and less competition, focusing on market place and customer, and also by adopting a commercial oriented approach to its decision making.
Even though, they were some risks resulting of the changes, the growth was not following up, the management and sales teams was continuously under pressure, and the IB projects was in increasing costs.
In consequence, I recommend that Immelt may continue in his strategy and incorporate new practices to sustain growth. In one hand, he can lobbying the governments that he deal with, and provide them more incentives for using his technology, also, keeping up with promotion andeducation to marketing and sales teams. In the other hand, he can reduce costs by outsourcing parts of the production or implementing manufactories where the research and developmentcenters are, which will make GE more cost effective and close to target markets.
Many of the business management and leadership development tools used by Jeff Immelt at GE have applications to our business and should be immediately adopted. His statement “my job today is 30% to 40% about people” is also true about our current business model. Application of his strategies towards leadership can also identify new growth prospects in our markets, develop a new generation of managers and future executives for our company, and also boost current earnings through greater efficiencies, stronger internal communications, lower employee turnover, and reductions in defect errors. We do an extremely efficient job at maximizing returns on financial capital. Immelt's success at GE can teach us how to leverage our human capital to the same capacity.
Immelt's work history in GE sales gives a strong clue on how HR and other human capital managers should view our operations. His “Imagination Breakthroughs” program was designed to unleash the ideas of his existing midlevel managers. His “One GE” initiative was created to increase communication between operating units. Both concepts are consistent with the notion of sharing a single vision for GE, to turn a century old company (like ours) into a modern, rapidly growing, and innovative firm. Abandoning the traditional linear top-down management structure for GE gave his subordinate managers the ability to act on their own ideas within the context of GE's current operations rather than forcing some through sheer frustration to abandon the company. The One GE program also led to the consolidation of eleven operating units into just seven, leading some of these units to share business services and even operate out of the same headquarters, giving rise to substantial cost savings for the company as well as fostering a shared vision for growth. Our current operating units often are in direct competition with each other for talent, capital, and other resources from the parent company and this rivalry erodes the concept of one single shared vision spread across the entire company. A better policy would be for our units to compete with outside companies to take market share and improve margins through a single shared vision rather than engaging in the current pattern of internecine competition between managers eager to build their own careers and fiefdoms at the parent company's expense.
Following a corporate legend like Jack Welch would be difficult for any new CEO, especially given the deteriorated financial condition of GE in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attack on New York and the financial scandals involving Tyco, Enron, and WorldCom. Immelt's first response was not to entrench or make excuses but instead challenge the process and search for new opportunities to reinvigorate GE through new business lines capable of double digit growth rates. Immelt's focus on improving technology applications, boosting customer services, entering new global markets, and the like are all strategies we have adopted (like Six Sigma) but none challenge the existing corporate process but instead attempt to improve upon the existing model.
Our company needs to not penalize an executive for an idea or for taking a risk which fails, common in today's internal corporate environment. This is a contravention of the unwritten law where “heads will roll” if a project fails and our company takes a loss. Such an approach within our firm would lead to future entrepreneurial growth as managers viewed themselves as business leaders rather than merely puppets following corporate dictates ordered from our parent headquarters. Experimentation should be encouraged and failures studied as closely for lessons as successes, a trait Immelt himself noted was part of the GE management process or what he described as “the difference between knowledge and intelligence.” The goal should not just executing well on current projects, or “meeting your numbers” on a quarterly basis, but learning lessons however small from every customer, product, service, or industrial approach. As Immelt noted, it takes “courage and imagination” to “take risks on people and ideas” but the cost of not doing so leads to stagnation and job security for existing managers rather than new growth opportunities which inherently will lead to a number of failures along the way despite all risk avoidance tools.
All this reformation within our company begins with the conceptualization of a single corporate operations model, one which reflects both the business ethics and community values of our firm. There are many examples from Immelt we can apply to our firm, for example, his concept of “pillar jobs” and preventing any new business leader at GE from advancing unless they have mastered one of these positions. Currently, our firm rewards loyalty, length of service, and personal assessments by supervisors more than competence in some situations. As our prior adoption of Six Sigma suggests, many of these GE tricks-of-the-trade can be adopted without major reform of our business model but clearly some cannot. Much of this process can start within our HR department, as Immelt himself also noted, by hiring only those new employees with vision and new ideas rather than based on GPA scores, letters of reference from employers, and other seemingly objective but nevertheless banal and uninspiring criteria.
Our company's model should embrace the future, much like Immelt did at GE, concentrating on a clear and convincing set of company values which embrace who we want to be twenty or even fifty years from now. Objective metrics are important, such as requiring double digit growth rates on any business line, targeting specific returns-on-equity for all new ventures, positioning within a market segment as either its leader or a close second, and so on. But such financial modeling is also compatible with a grander corporate model which injects issues of business morality and futuristic thinking into the process. An excellent example here is Immelt's “town hall forums” where he listened to customers directly about their concerns as well as shared his vision for GE with them. This abandoned the traditional “pecking order” approach of junior executives reporting to more senior managers until the chain ends at the CEO's desk.
All of this analysis above suggests our firm can benefit from the immediate adoption of a new business model embracing a clear and shared vision and by offering our managers an incentive to meet their goals and targets in the most creative and imaginative methods they can without risk of termination or career penalties should they occasionally stumble and fall short of predictions.
Change
Growth in a Downturn
Do you think Welch was right in deciding against retaining final CEO candidate, who failed to make it to the job?
Succession Planning
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