General Electric

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How does General Electric’s framework give it the opportunity to be at the forefront of the markets in which it participates?

General Electric uses a general electric matrix to position their products according to the market attractiveness and its competitive strength. This general electric matrix allows General electric to be innovative in their particular markets, which explains why they have always been ahead of their competitors. General Electric is one of the companies that has been around a long time and knows how to make sure it is keeping up with the specific markets they are in. To get a better understanding, take for instance, General Electric is pursuing technological alternatives to bring solar products that are of low and affordable costs. However, the company’s solar business is undergoing various challenges related to making investment decisions since it has uncertainties in the energy policy, costs of products, levels of demands, and technology. Using its framework, the company has been able to develop tools with embedded mathematical models to help analyze and estimate the cost of its products, the level of demands of its products, and also to help in decisionmaking.

Examine your own firm in the light of GE’s framework. Does this firm have the means to execute like GE?

I work for a software company, which has been around for several years and has been ranked as one of the best companies to work for year after year. This makes me feel as though they do have the means to execute just like General electric does. Just like General Electric, this software company uses manufacturing execution systems, which help transform the business through insights using data integration, industrial internet of things, predictive analysis, and machine learning. This manufacturing execution system is called Predix manufacturing execution system. (Predix MES) ( Welch & Bryne, 2003). 

Which type of resources could the firm require?

The resources that this software company would require to include physical assets, financial resources, and tangible resources such as raw materials and machinery. In addition, the company needs capabilities to help improve the productivity of the other resources possessed by the company. Secondly, it requires organizational processes to help the company have a smooth running. Thirdly, the company requires its own attributes, information related to the company’s business, enough knowledge and know-how about the company and its relations, a good reputation, experience, and good relationships with its customers and suppliers and all its stakeholders. The company also needs a competitive advantage since it should be able to implement its own value creating a strategy and not always being implemented by any current or potential competitors (Blackwelder, 2014). 

How could GE’s lessons be applied to this firm?

One of GE’s lessons that could be applied in this company is that even the stocks with high prices get the blues, which is an experience of stocks that traded higher once but came to trade so low. In light of this,  it should teach the firm that no stock is a sure-fire moneymaker, despite being called a blue chip. The second lesson is that holding for the long term is not a guarantee for success, since from 1996 the stock exceeded 14 dollars a share and even now after 22 years the stock is still at 14 dollars a share. This clearly means that long time frames do not necessarily mean you are going to make money. The third lesson is that past divided does not really indicate future results, and it is wrong to assume that something that happened long ago will continue since the creative evolution of capitalism changes. The fourth lesson is that a company that is diversified does not necessarily mean it has a diversified portfolio (Pound & Hammond, 2015). 

References

Blackwelder, J. K. (2014). Electric city: General Electric in Schenectady. Texas: A&M University Press. 

Pound, A & Hammond, J. W. (2015). Men and volts: the story if general electric. London: Creative media partners. Welch, J & Bryne, J. A. (2003). Jack: Straight from the gut. London: Headline publishing.