General Electric
In 1890, Thomas Edison formed Edison General Electric as a way to bring together several of his business interests. Thomson-Houston, Edison’s competitor gained important patents that lead to the merger of the two companies known as General Electric Company in 1892. Still in operation and maintained; headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, General Electric was ranked third largest company based on profits, total sales, assets and market value with over 287,000 employees (ge.com). Listed as the original twelve and only one remaining today, GE was part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. General Electric has developed into a multinational corporation that functions through technology infrastructure, NBC Universal, Energy, Capital Finance, and a Consumer and Industrial segment (ge.com).
GE accentuates in the areas of innovation, diversification and expansion to produce a stable growth in various business sectors. With their experience of operating in the industries for over a century, the company categorize its products into four core business sectors: energy, technology infrastructure, GE capital, and home and business solution. General Electric’s key strengths are its operational efficiency, business scale, history and brand reputation. GE, as the industry leader, operates more efficiently and on a great economic scale that indicates the high contribution margins. GE also creates a large business network and the strong alliance with other major corporation to enable its long-standing relationships to obtain the best human resource, equipment, and other resources.
There are only a few companies such as Siemens, Phillips and 3M which are on the scale to compete with the variety and breadth of the product lines of GE. Alongside GE, Siemens is one of the most conscientious companies when it comes to pollution, energy use, and the conservation of all resources. Siemens acquired Rolls-Royce and has since purchased Dresser-Rand Group in a deal valued at $7.6B (Reuters, 2014). They are the largest suppliers of equipment in the energy sector. Siemens is still popular in competitive industries for its innovative achievements, technical supports, quality, reliability, and globalization. Being environmental friendly is one of many positive aspects of Siemens to feel proud of. Both companies are in the same scope for operations and becoming the leader in its industry. They both employ some of the same factors that makes them successful today.