GE Goes Back to Basics

Jeff Immelt recently did an interview in the International Herald Tribune where he laid out GE’s overall strategy in this new, post-crisis age. As he explained, GE will bring our focus back to manufacturing, technology and product innovation, which were the original DNA and history of the company. The financing side, as we know, is being scaled down and will be aligned more closely to supporting the industrial side of the business. Jeff called this “Getting Back to Basics.” I call it “Making Stuff!”

I knew during my MBA that I wanted to work for a company that did real stuff as my mum would call it. Before business school, I worked in the British Government as a policy executive. It was exciting to deal with politicians and national issues, but it was always about frameworks and policies – about the how and why rather than the what. I wanted to get my hands dirty and work on something that you could touch and feel – something that could make a real impact on people and customers.

Making big, exciting things is what GE does extremely well. It’s also what makes GE such an exciting place to work.

Recently, I had the fortune to see one of GE’s next great growth initiatives first hand. GE is building a battery plant in New York State to produce next generation stored energy batteries on an industrial scale. Its production is intended for backup power supplies for data centers and telecommunications switching stations. GE hopes to make industrial batteries a $1 billion-a-year business. Donning a hard hat and safety goggles, I was shown around the site in Schenectady last week where the factory is currently being built. It’s an impressive site that shows the scale of GE’s ambition to drive forward in the stored energy market. I look forward to returning in a few months to see finished batteries rolling off the production line. 

To me, this was a real-life example of GE getting back to basics while at the same time pushing technology forward … I am finally involved in “making something real!”

Posted by Adrian