Paper Example on Business Strategy of General Electric Company

What is the number of different GE business?

The GE electric company has its headquarters in Boston, U.S. The global locations of GE are found in over 170 countries, with 333,000 employees worldwide. Some of the businesses that are currently powered by General Electricity include GE Aviation, GE, Power, GE Oil and Gas, GE Digital, GE Renewable Energy, and GE Capital (GE).

How would you characterize GEs diversification strategy?

Ge's strategy has significantly contributed to its success. For example in 2015, the company made significant progress after the major portfolio changes that were in the organic investment and M&A. The company aims to spread more ideas and connecting solutions, creating solutions, and leveraging scales, thus resulting in faster growth, expanded margins, and developing experienced leaders (General Electric Company).

Are there sectors of GEs business that are performing better than others?

Some areas in the GEs business perform better than others do. For example, the analysis done in 2015 showed that the GE Power recorded higher profits compared to the GE Renewable Energy. However, the GE Renewable Energy is the fastest in growth whereas the GE Appliance and Lighting showed a decline in the traditional lighting (General Electric Company).

Has GE recently responded to criticisms that they have over-reached in their efforts to diversity?

When the company was criticized due to the size of the G.E Capital, the Company responded by challenging itself to reclaim its role as the most valued industrial company in the world. The company aimed to be the leading industry in value creation and innovation (General Electric Company).

What challenges do you see in the future of GE? Discuss and substantiate your positions

Some of the GE sectors will face significant competition in the market. For example, the area of health has already shown its experiencing pressure due to other emerging markets. The use of traditional lighting is also decreasing thus affecting the GE Appliance and Lighting Sector. The Company will also still face oil and gas prices due to pressure in oil prices, lower customer expenditure, and excess capacity, as shown in the GE Company graphs.

PART 2

The Role of the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO).

Who owns Strategy

According to the answers given by the CSOs in the discussion of the job challenges, most of them suggested that the CEO owns strategy. The reason being that at the end of the day, the CEO is the one to make the final decisions. However, it is the role of the CSO to help in formulating the strategies (Dye). Besides, other articles show that the CSO is in dominant positions, but none mentions the CSO as strategy owner (Menz, Muller-Stewens, and Henkel).

How deeply should CSOs be involved in implementation

The CSOs have a duty to familiarize themselves with the facts, opinions, and alternatives of any implementations in the business. They have to evaluate and challenge the new plans before presenting the final opinions to the CEOs. Therefore, the CSOs are at the corporate center while implementing (Dye).

Which performance metrics should be used to measure long and short term performance?

The majority of the answers given by the CSOs suggested that the settings of strategy are the one used to measure the short and long-term performance. The company also has to consider the operational excellence so as to get the strategies done.

Based on your examination of business strategy, what are your reactions to these questions and the discussion in this article?

I find the questions asked to be thoughtful and beneficial to companies and their staff members such as the CEOs and CSOs. The questions drove the CSOs to open up to what they thought to be their roles, and some of them also seemed to reach out to the CEOs, such as when Marius Haas stated his urges to come up with new initiatives. The questions also covered the performance of businesses, the metric used to measure the performance, and how the performance modifies the work of the CSO, a proper way to make the CSOs think more of their duties and how they are affected. The questions and the discussions covered more about the strategies and how the chief strategy officers reflect on their roles.

References

Dye, Renee. How Chief Strategy Officers Think about the Role. Strategy. Atlanta: McKinsey and Company, 2008. Print.

GE. GE. 2016. Print. 11 April 2017.

General Electric Company. GE 2015 INTEGRATED SUMMARY REPORT. Overview. Connecticut: General Electric Company, 2016. Print.

Menz, Markus, et al. The Role of Chief Strategy Officers. Study. Munich: Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, 2011. Print.