Economy After 110 years, ailing G.E is booted from the elite Dow Jones Industrial Average

[second sight]

Replaced by walgreens

 

[Arkain2K]

Replaced by walgreens

...yes?

 

[Ophydian]

It’s internal management structure is clumsy and inefficient, there is a ton of job overlap in each P&L that could be consolidated. Internal business departments are heavily silo’d using performance metrics for each department that does not address the goal of creating a good product. Up until the lay offs jobs were like government, it was hard to get fired. Under Welch, the bottom 10% were always replaced so it created an environment that forced people to do average or better.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

I worked for GE Aviation for a brief time. The part I was in seemed they liked the idea of what they were doing better than the money making product they were actually producing

Er, can you elaborate a bit? Seem like an intriguing critique in light of this news.

 

[JJSBUR]

Hopefully Fadec will help them in the future.

 

[Ruprecht]

One of the original 12 companies in the Dow Jones.
Funny that a company like GE would ossify into a management heavy, opaque conglomerate... and then fail.

 

[jefferz]

DuPont is still alive, but nothing like what it used to be. Other iconic companies that have disappeared: Circuit City, Pan Am, Blockbuster, and Polaroid. Fond memories of all four.

Don’t forget sears. My parents bought everything there when I was growing up.

 

[HockeyBjj]

Er, can you elaborate a bit? Seem like an intriguing critique in light of this news.

Sure. To be clear though, I had a very small job in a massive, massive corporation. Trying to draw anything more than an anecdotal story out of this would be like making a judgement on an entire city based off how nice your apartment room was.

Anyway, GE has these things called University Development Centers. UDCs. Great idea on paper. They buy some small office area around good engineering schools, offer co-ops/internships to the college students. And then use it as a feeder to get some good engineers full time into GE once they graduate, and get cheap engineering labor out of them while they work at the UDC on small projects.

The issue was, all these projects were rather BS, not applicable, and didn’t have nearly enough work for all the college kids they’d hired as interns. This was a major problem at mine, as well as the others around I talked with via company messenger as we were all freaking bored.

It paid about $5 less per hour than most co-ops (only 16/hr) but I took it because A) having GE on my resume as an electrical engineer would be a huge plus when I graduated and B) it was in my college town so I could keep all my friends and not have to move away for the summer and a semester. After a month The job was so boring, non rewarding, and useless to my development I spent my time on the job finding another co-op that would start now and get me out of there. 3 months in on a 6 month contract I managed to get out of the contract, and took a job across the country as that was what I found looking to hire. Worked out great as I discovered I like manufacturing automation controls side of electrical engineering.

I went back there a few years later to see my old manager and talk to the kids now working there, and from the little q&a I could tell the same issue of not having enough work/having just busy work was going on and they were frustrated. I also know GE has a tendency to always financially support the biggest senior design projects, and then not give much actual help support for it. So the project ends up meh at best and doesn’t develop anything truly useful for the company or patentable invention, despite having the biggest budget

Again, just what I’ve seen from my very narrow look in at the company. It’s like they like doing things so they can say on brochures and PowerPoints all the initiatives they have at the university level to get the best and brightest minds, but end up turning bright kids away while getting nothing back and just keep putting money into the programs.

 

[ElKarlo]

Good it's been horribly run for decades. Financial engineering plus the crazy leverage going up to the FC. It's really been a mess.
I bought shares in 1999, I'm well under water there.
Meanwhile Honeywell went from basket case to fantastic . GE deserves the booting.
Immelt also bought a new office for HQ, within a year they had to buy more property from PG, guy just couldn't think ahead

 

[ElKarlo]

If they weren't selling off business, I would be interested at buying at 13$ a share.

Their management model is shit, and it hurts the Boeing company everyday they use it as well. Managers are not interchangable. When you require no subject matter knowledge, and rely on pure analytics, you have created a plan to fail.

Six Sigma is BS. Cutting bottom people is terrible for morale and just leads to fudging numbers

 

[2DUM2TAP]

Six Sigma is BS. Cutting bottom people is terrible for morale and just leads to fudging numbers

They switched to Simplean while I was there too after I did my BB. Started asking people what process just wasted time and made no sense instead of trying to measure everything.

 

[Arkain2K]

What the Hell Happened at GE?
GEOFF COLVIN | May 25th, 2018

​

It’s a bad day for a CEO when he announces he’s retiring and the stock goes up. That was Jeff Immelt’s day on June 12, 2017. The news of his departure was in one sense no surprise—some investors and analysts had been urging his ouster for years—but it was also a shock.

http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/longform/ge-decline-what-the-hell-happened

 

[Ophydian]

Six Sigma is BS. Cutting bottom people is terrible for morale and just leads to fudging numbers

You know what’s even worse for moral? Working with people that shouldn’t be there and have no clue what they doing and are only good at navigating culture and politics. My least favorite people were the ones that would transfer every two years, long enough to claim the did something but not long enough to be found to be a fake.

 

[Gregolian]

Proof that no matter how big you are it can all come crashing down. The googles and facebooks of the world would be wise to pay attention...

I think Google and Amazon are safe. You know anyone that DOESN'T use either companies stuff that has a computer?

 

[Ruprecht]

I think Google and Amazon are safe. You know anyone that DOESN'T use either companies stuff that has a computer?

Tech companies are more prone to failure from getting too big and too old, because they tend to rely on constant innovation.
I could easily see Google transitioning from a cutting edge tech company to simply another management heavy, opaque conglomerate.
Of course that doesn't mean they would disappear altogether or would continue to dwindle.
IBM is a similar story.
I guess it's like looking at GE back in the day and saying, "Do you know anyone that doesn't use light bulbs?" ...and then someone invents fluorescent lighting and then LEDs.

 

[Liquid Smoke]

I think Google and Amazon are safe. You know anyone that DOESN'T use either companies stuff that has a computer?

Tech companies are more prone to failure from getting too big and too old, because they tend to rely on constant innovation.
I could easily see Google transitioning from a cutting edge tech company to simply another management heavy, opaque conglomerate.
Of course that doesn't mean they would disappear altogether or would continue to dwindle.
IBM is a similar story.
I guess it's like looking at GE back in the day and saying, "Do you know anyone that doesn't use light bulbs?" ...and then someone invents fluorescent lighting and then LEDs.

How Yahoo won the search wars:
http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/03/02/238576/index.htm

Will MySpace ever lose its monopoly:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/feb/08/business.comment

Can anyone catch Nokia, the cell phone king:

 

[ElKarlo]

You know what’s even worse for moral? Working with people that shouldn’t be there and have no clue what they doing and are only good at navigating culture and politics. My least favorite people were the ones that would transfer every two years, long enough to claim the did something but not long enough to be found to be a fake.

So get rid of the duds, but pre determining that 10% of the bottom should be cut annually just means people game the system. WHich they have obviously been doing since the 80s at GE. Can't make he numbers? Just fudge them and be on you merry way.
Predetermined outcomes are awful. Ge clearly didn't know it was doing on many fronts. It used GE capital to make up the differences and they leveraged that until it exploded.

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Amerikuracana]

Replacing a company that makes things, with a company that sells things.. Usually a bad sign.

 

[Ophydian]

GE spinning off Healthcare and divesting it’s entir stake in Baker Hughes.