"Did GE succeed under Jack

Welch due to bottom-up

execution of strategies?"

YES

GROUP 5
“Bottom-up execution involves empowering frontline employees and teams to identify opportunities, make decisions, and take
action based on their unique insights and expertise.” - HBR

Boundaryless Behaviour Work Out and Best Practices Going Global

KEY STRATEGIES

Service Businesses Stretch Goals

Financial Performance Internal Business Processes

Customer Learning and growth

IMPACT EVALUATION PARAMETERS

 WORK OUT AND BEST
PRACTICES
EXECUTION: Groups of 40-100
employees shared their views and
proposals, which were analysed and
evaluated by their bosses, and a decision
to implement or not was taken, all within
3 days. The Best Practices approach took
learnings from other leader organizations
for improving processes.
IMPACT
Learning & Growth: Many GE managers
realised they were managingthe wrong
things
Fostered open communication,
collaboration, and the removal of
bureaucratic hurdles.
Internal Business Process: Productivity
increase %age doubled from 2% to 4%.
Over 200,000 employees (>67% of
workforce) had participated in ‘Work-Out’
Jack Welch’s bottom-up approach for execution
“A decade from now, I would like General
Electric to be perceived as a unique,
high- spirited, entrepreneurial enterprise
the most profitable, highly diversified
company on earth, with world quality
leadership in every one of its product
lines.“
- Jack Welch, 1981
VISION
BOUNDARYLESS
BEHAVIOUR
EXECUTION: Institutionalization of
WorkOut and Best Practices. Cross-
functional, cross hierarchial, cross teams,
all suggestions and new ideas and
encouraged.
Examples: Canadian team identified an
appliance for the New Zealand market,
flexible job shop techniques went from
Canada to the US etc.
IMPACT
Customer: Extremely fast-paced product
innovation and integration, leading to
better quality products
Learning & Growth: An integration
model came through where lessons
were drawn from post-acquisition
reviews, result: integrations were
completed in 100 days
 GOING GLOBAL
EXECUTION: “The idea of a company
being global is nonsense. Businesses
are global, not companies”. Welch gave
the authority to individual business units
to take the call of going global or staying
local. However, the bar of being #1 or #2
was now evaluated on world position.
IMPACT
Financial: By 1998, international
revenues were $42.8bn (almost double
from 5 years ago)
Global revenues were growing at 3x pace
of domestic sales
Internal Business Process:
Internationalization of business filled
gaps in the value chain which led to a
more holistic corporate setup.
Jack Welch’s bottom-up approach for execution
STRETCH GOALS
EXECUTION: Stretch goals can be described as
‘using dreams to set business targets. with no
real idea how to get there’. It was left upon
employees and managers on what new innovative
practices to use to achieve these goals, if at all
they choose to do it.
IMPACT
Financial: Operating margin at 14.4%, up from
single digits since multiple years.
Internal Business Process: Inventory turns of 7
instead of 4 or 5
Learning & Growth: In the pursuit of stretch goals
employees started thinking of fundamentally
different ways of working
SERVICE BUSINESSES
EXECUTION: Welch began to challenge
managers ‘to participate more in the
value chain’.
Medical business - InSite; Aircraft - In-
flight engine monitoring; Power - Remote
Diagnostics
IMPACT
Financial: Up from 16.4% in 1980, 60% of
GE’s profits came through services by
1995.
By 1996, $8bn revenue in equipment
service businesses
Customer: Combination of hardware +
service by its very nature provided better
utility to customer
THANK YOU
GROUP 5