General Electric: Strategy, Technology, and Innovation

Company Profile and Global Reach

General Electric's history forms a significant component of U.S. technological history. GE has progressed from the home laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison to become one of the world's largest corporations, through the course of electrical technology's advancement from its earliest applications to the high-tech innovations of the 21st century. GE has a world market spanning over a hundred countries, with roughly 45% of company revenues generated from overseas operations. Through more than 110 years of innovation, GE has accumulated over 67,500 patents; scientists working for the organization have received Nobel Prizes on two occasions, in addition to several other awards for their contributions to the field (Referenceforbusiness, 2015).

The company engages in manufacturing, processing, building, developing, producing, and assembling; leasing, selling, distributing, and supplying; purchasing, mining, extracting, acquiring, and leasing; and owning, operating, dealing with, servicing, funding, and experimenting with materials, apparatus, equipment, devices, appliances, structures, information, and intangible and tangible property, systems, processes, and services of all natures, kinds, and specifications (Referenceforbusiness, 2015). GE's mission is to relentlessly invent products that matter — inventions that power, build, cure, and move the world. The company's offerings, required by all but made by a few, are its pride and define GE to both clients and staff (Referenceforbusiness, 2015).

Export finance is a critical tool for customer support; without it, the company cannot compete with foreign rivals that benefit from export credit agency (ECA) governmental funding. Company stock, which experienced a 0.6% drop in premarket trading, lost 0.5% year-to-date (YTD) on the reference date, whereas the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 8.7% at -0.13%. GE's market capitalization stood at $79.08 billion (Kilgore, 2015). A 5% boost in quarterly profits was facilitated by increased power division performance, which offset weak results in the oil segment. GE's expected industrial operational income was forecast in the $1.13–$1.20 range for that year, raising the low-end estimate from $1.10 (Krauskopf, 2015).

With regard to growth and revenues over a twelve-month period, GE recorded a -102.2% earnings per share (EPS) growth rate, excluding non-recurring items. GE's EPS was -$1.48 for the first half of fiscal year 2015. The growth rate of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) was -15.6%, with a -3.6% free cash flow growth rate over the same one-year span (Krauskopf, 2015).

GE has undergone a progressive shift from technology to services and has grown into a conglomerate with eleven key operating units: GE Energy, GE Advanced Materials, GE Transportation, GE Infrastructure, GE Consumer & Industrial, GE Healthcare, GE Equipment Services, GE Insurance, GE Consumer Finance, GE Commercial Finance, and NBC Universal (GE ownership: 80%) (Referenceforbusiness, 2015). For more than a century, research and development (R&D) has been the cornerstone of GE innovation. The company currently employs roughly 36,000 technicians who work across its global and business research units at the intersection of industry and technology, solving some of the world's toughest challenges (Referenceforbusiness, 2015).

GE's Technology Innovations and Digital Strategy

General Electric continually finds new ways to solve longstanding problems. It has implemented just-in-time (JIT) process methodology and introduced new medicines as product lines. Its new processes have yielded new products — such as personal computers in 1980 — and its inventory control processes have incorporated bar codes, upgrading older techniques. The company has found alternative uses for DVDs and paper clips, and process innovations include soil testing through satellite imagery. Most significantly, GE's processes are helping transform the company into the world's leading digital industrial organization, delivering critical solutions for clients.

GE's Predix software platform enables clients to reduce operating expenses, boost operational performance, drive increased asset reliability, and reduce risk. The Industrial Internet has emerged through the convergence of international industrial systems with advanced analytics, cost-efficient sensing, and new levels of Internet connectivity. It integrates three major components: advanced analytics, brilliant machines, and people at work — driving strong outcomes and novel industrial opportunities that allow companies to reach unprecedented levels of performance (GE, 2015).

In terms of product offerings, Predix solutions serve as a link to the future of energy. These products are designed to provide cost-efficient, safe, and reliable electricity to clients and cities, along with a robust and connected utility platform (GE, 2015). Such innovations are producing tremendous transformations across the company. In the energy sector, GE combines its capabilities in energy storage, light-emitting diode (LED) technology, solar power, electric vehicles, and onsite generation infrastructure into a sustainable energy ecosystem that benefits partners and clients alike.

General Electric has been evolving into an extensive global digital industrial firm, reshaping industries through responsive, predictive, and software-defined solutions and machines. The company is structured around an international knowledge exchange known as the "GE Store," through which individual businesses access and share the same infrastructure, intellectual capital, technology, and markets. Every invention further drives improvement and application across its industrial segments. With scale, people, services, and technology, the company delivers improved customer outcomes by operating fluently in the language of industry (GE, 2015).