Healthymagination at General Electric - Essay Example

Healthymagination at GE College GE’s external environment consists of full-time employees who spend at least 2,000 hours at work every year. In the course of this time they eat about 400 meals and those that smoke take an average 50 packs of cigarettes. The company is helping its 300,000 employees around the world advance their health by launching a distinctive; certification program intended to recognize plus reward of excellence in worksite health. This program evaluates 500 GE campuses worldwide on eight critical elements: Education & Prevention, Nutrition, Site Leadership & Wellness Teams, Physical Activity, Health- Related Absence, Tobacco, Stress Management, and Health Risk Questionnaires (Mark, 2008). Additionally, these quantitative measures and site certification is audited by GE’s audit staff and is obligatory for campuses with in excess of 100 employees. As the company grows, its goal is to reach every employee in spite of site size. The introduction of Electronic medical records came with the potential to revolutionize healthcare by calculating administrative costs through superior effectiveness, improved correctness and broader admission to the latest clinical data (Glader, 2009). With these features the workflow is streamlined, it allow doctors to share information steadily, GE’s Centricity EMR brings the newest technology to bear on the test of managing several patient records around the globe. What makes GE to act this way is its commitment to patient-centered innovation that focuses on safety, clinical solutions as well as a customized environment for even the youngest patients. 2 GE is more diversified compared to the past. The creation of the GE healthymagination Fund shows GE’s commitment to improvement in healthcare as a means to promoting the objectives of visibly increasing access to healthcare at the same time improving the quality along with reducing the delivery cost (McGregor, 2009). The company also gives support to the development of companies with inventive technologies as well as business models that share in the broader healthymagination goals. A s a way to further diversify the company, it additionally on receiving growth capital in addition to expertise in investment, the fund’s investment partners have the opportunity to cooperatively work with a global leader in healthcare technology in areas with mutual interest, which includes technology development and global distribution What led the company to diversification was to combat the crisis of healthcare access. Healthymagination has a goal to offer Better Health for additional People around the world. While focusing on technologies that are simpler, easier-to-use and more portable devices, those who lack sufficient healthcare right now, may for the very first time get access to an adequate diagnosis, an opportunity at surgery, or the ways to save the child’s life (Glader, 2010). When we specifically focus on anesthesia equipment, GE committed a center team that focused on anesthesia products to work together with international hospitals Anesthesiologists for research along with development for use of GE ICU/anesthesia products geared to low-income countries. This has led the company to knowing its market and its business significantly better than any time in history. The company has put in place financial models and levers that it uses to drive our performance. It also has clear strategies with plans of action for all of it divisions. It also engages in investing in its people and has specific plans to increase accountable leaders that will drive change (Mark, 2008). 3 In 2009, General Electric publicized that in the next six years it would spend $3 billion in creating at least 100 health-care innovations that were intended to substantially lower costs, increase accessibility, and along with improve quality (Scott and Corporate Environmental Data Clearinghouse, 1992). The company highlighted two products at the time; a $1,000 electrocardiogram device and a PC-based ultrasound machine that is portable and sells for as little as $15,000 (David, 1998). These products are revolutionary, and not due to their small size and low price. They also are extraordinary because they were originally developed for markets in emerging economies and are now on sale in the United States, where they pioneering new uses for such machines. This process that was used to develop these two machines is known as reverse innovation. It is characterized by reversing the globalization approach used by many industrial goods manufacturers in rich countries have been using for decades. In this approach, a company develops a product and then distributes it globally but adapted to local conditions. It gives multinationals an allowance of making optimal trade-offs between the global scale so vital to the minimization costs and the needed local customization to maximize market share. Globalization did well in the times when rich countries accounted for the enormous bulk of the market and other countries had no much opportunity. Due to the rapid development of populous countries like China and India, those days are gone; the wealthy nations are experiencing slow growth (Ulrich, Kerr, and Ashkenas, 2002). Currently, Globalization is so prevailing because it has delivered. It accounts for GE’s revenues outside the United States soaring from $4.8 billion, in 1980, to $97 billion, in 2008 (Welch, 2001). This model came to fame when opportunities in the current emerging markets were too limited, their economies had not yet taken off, and they did not have middle or low-end client segments. This made sense for multinational manufacturers to simply give them modifications of goods for developed countries. At first, GE, like other multinationals, was contented with the 15% to 20% rates of growth its businesses enjoyed in developing countries (Eckes, 2002). In September 2001, Jeff Immelt had just become GE’s CEO, set a goal that was to greatly speed up organic growth at the company and develop into less dependent on acquisitions. This led to people questioning many things that had been ignored, including the strategy of globalization that limited the company to scanning the top of emerging markets. A thorough analysis of GE’s health-care, generation of power, and power-distribution businesses indicated that if they took full advantage of opportunities ignored by globalization in heavily populated places like India, they could develop two to three times faster there (Ulrich, Kerr, and Ashkenas, 2002). In order to do that, reverse innovation has to be employed to meet specific needs and budgets of customers in these markets. 4 Healthymagination initiative fits with GEs resources, capabilities, and core competencies well due to the fact that it has gone through disaster and is recovering gradually these days (Varma, Pawan, and DeNisi, 2008). Its finance department is on the fix, with the bulk of its debts and bothered loans trending downward. This has led to G.E. revamping its strategy in the stir of the financial crisis. According to, Mr. Immelt, the company must bank more on manufacturing physical products and less on financial engineering. He insists that it is also necessary for the whole American economy. Currently, the financial unit is growing smaller and has focus on fields where G.E. considers it has a competitive advantage (Henry, 2008). These specialty areas include industries that G.E. has a sturdy manufacturing presence, aviation, like power generation, health-care equipment, and lending to companies that are midsize. The big-moat businesses are quite lucrative. An example is the jet-engine business which has higher profit margins as well as returns on capital more than the leading banks. According to Mr. Immelt, it doesn’t occur every quarter or every year. He adds that over a 10- or 20-year period, businesses that are hard to do bring best returns. Manufacturing that is technology-based has to be a vital part of reinvigorating the economy. Under Mr. Immelt, G.E. has penetratingly extended its overseas sales. But the company has gone down in some of its determined goals for even higher growth, particularly in markets like china and India (Hetrick, and Martin, 2012). According to Mr. Immelt, doing business in China has some challenges and difficulties, particularly in industries marked by Beijing as priorities to the economic development of the nation. 5 The problem healthymagination is facing is restoring its lost glory. Many people lost trust in healthymagination and it no longer command support it did some years back from the people. Losing trust is likened to loosing market share and therefore Immelt should be quick to make decision to win back public confidence. Not every country that the program is taken to seem to work out with government, cooperates and entities easily buying to the idea (DuBrin, 2012). The problem therefore is that not every government in every country will like the idea. Once there is resistance from government Immelt should respond by penetrating such countries through non governmental organizations. Healthymagination will also face threat fro economic crisis. The uncertainty in the world economy is sending panic across every sector within the business sector. If general electric faces economic challenges healthymagination programs loses popularity with the workers as focus is shifted to finding solution to the problem by cutting costs and taking other economic measures that will restore the companies back to normalcy. Immelt should therefore be making decision that keeps the company off the economic meltdowns like taking early measures that limits wastage and unnecessary budgets that are costing the company much for nothing. People should also be sensitized that health comes before anything else and that deteriorating health will cost lives (Allen & Hamilton, 2006). Healthymagination campaign is also likely to face challenges of unpopularity nature. As years go by the same campaign will likely to face unpopularity by the fact that as same campaign is carried over and over again it will become monotonous. Immelt should ensure that the campaign is rebranded time and again so as to sell easily to new people. 6 Strategic leadership is the ability to anticipate, maintain flexibility, envision and empower others to make strategic alterations as necessary. It involves managing through others a whole enterprise rather than a functioning sub unit and dealing with changes that occur and increase in this age of the competitive landscape. The CEO of GE has exemplified strategic leadership by learning to influence human behavior in His environment, the feelings of the workers and their thoughts. As a leader, he has managed to manage human capital, manage knowledge, creating and commercializing innovation, this has made him successful. Under his leadership, the GE Company has been able to achieve strategic competitiveness and earn above average returns by responding quickly to changes in the complicated global competitive environment. One of Mr. Immelt was to create an independent board and advance system of governance. Because of the dynamic competitive landscape and varying performance levels, many boards of directors have been moving out to succeed CEOs. During the tenure of Jack Welch, the company had incredible success. However, the competitive landscape has been changing with Immelt leadership. This may be attributed to the economic and political uncertainties globally. For Immelt to achieve growth, he has to emphasize the core industrial companies that were ignored by Welch. The company is facing criticism for poor accounting practices that may have reported growth out of questionable records. This has left Immelt with challenges hence he needs to make changes. He has to refocus the company’s innovation and marketing capabilities. He is putting emphasis on transparency in accounting practices and the development of a more independent board of directors. The environment demands that companies to grow in a different way from the past, GE has had a lower performance than in the past decade, the board seems to be at par with Immelt leadership and performance (Magee, 2009). The board has emphasized Immelt integrity, commitment to company governance and his zeal to improve long term shareholder value. 7 GE Aviation got into the Chinese market in 1985, when China Southwest Airlines and Yunnan Airlines launched their first lot of Boeing 737 airliners. The company has been in China for 27 years, and has a growing share of the engine market. China has more than 2,800 aircraft engines made by GE that are in use. This accounts for about 60% of that whole market. In the year 2011, the company’s turnover reached $1.2 billion, doubling the figure for 2005 (Guerrero, & Rowe, 2010). In the sector of business development, several changes at GE Aviation. When GE entered the Chinese market, its main business was focused on sale of engines, provision of outsourcing and after-sales as well as overhaul services. With time, GE Aviation began to buy components in China and steadily engaged in local independent research as well as development programs. This included providing an ARJ power plant, a regional airliner manufactured and developed in China. Due to its expansion, GE Aviation has advanced unprecedentedly in personnel terms. Right now GE aviation in China has more than 700 employees (Henry, 2008). Each of its worldwide business conglomerates keeps in touch with GE companies internationally. The company has a regular quarterly meeting where a discussion on how to establish a better policy for every business department to develop abroad. The topics range from government affairs and making of policy, to development and research. Most of the GE international strategies were conceived through this approach. When faced with difficulties or challenges, particularly with government affairs, the company seeks help from the head office. Everyone is briefed on the global situation first in the head office then the briefing is done in the other countries on the situation. These briefings are usually done via teleconference. Each year, the global vice-presidents are invited to conduct field surveys in the foreign countries in different seasons and times. In a typical field survey, a whole week is spent visiting clients and collecting feedback. This includes comments on its services and products, upcoming plans as well as the intentions of some airlines. After this survey, the officials from the headquarters always change their views on these international markets and its clients. References Mark, K. 2008. 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