GE facing changes

1959 Words8 Pages
[1] How difficult a challenge did Jack Welch face in 1981? How effectively did he assume control? When Welch became CEO in April 1981, the US economy was in recession, with high interest rates and a strong dollar exacerbating the problem. But, contrary to the notion that Welch inherited a moribund company, things were going quite well already. Over the course of Jones's leadership (not forget that this guy also was voted as CEO of the year), which began in 1973, revenue had grown at an average annual rate of 12 percent, and earnings had grown at 16 percent, not much different from Welch’s 20-year-performance. In my opinion, the challenge for Welch was to spot trouble before it occurred, to take preventative measures, and to make the most of GE's (and stock markets’) tremendous momentum. The challenge for Welch was to keep the earnings growth at a high pace as the numbers of the company (assets, revenues, etc) get bigger. For a huge elephant as GE, it was getting highly risky not to implement a change that makes a turnaround on its bureaucratic business model. In some ways, Welch was able to implement his sweeping agenda of change in GE because he created a sense of crisis within the organization. Instilling the notion that massive change was necessary helped him to reduce employee resistance to the plan, in addition to generating buy-in at both senior levels and shareholders. [2] What is Welch’s objective in the series of initiatives he launched in the late 1980s and early 1990s? What is he trying to achieve in the round of changes he put in motion in that period? Is there a logic or rationale supporting the change process? We can say that Welch’s approach to business improvement has gone through three different cycles of learning: a) In the first cycle (from early 1980s to late 1980s) he focused GE on the elimination of variety in its portfolio

More about GE facing changes

Open Document