General Electric's Essay On Strategies For The Transportation Sector In Nigeria.

1. Write the Structure the portfolio in accordance with.. (General electric .. transportation sector in Nigeria)

2. What are the Strategies for global businesses
a. Strategic analysis
b. Strategic development

3. Describe the Stakeholders in the international business

4. Explain the Cross-cultural management and leadership
a. Country or regional cultural comparisons
b. Managing the cross-cultural organisation

5. Describe the International trade and investment
a. International trade
b. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

6. Describe the International marketing
a. Market intelligence and market analysis
b. Market segmentation
c. Managing the marketing mix (4Ps)

7. Explain the concept Global business operations
a. The value chain
b. The supply chain
c. Managing quality

8. Technology and the international business

For each section carry out in-depth research about the company and country (or region) that you have selected. In the end, you will need to carry out an evaluation of the company's strategy and market position.

Strategies for global businesses

General Electric was established in the year 1892 by the merger of Thomas-Houstan Electric Company and Edison General Electric headquartered in New York, US. General Electric better known as GE is a conglomerate which deals in a number of sector including aviation, transportation, capital, power, global research, lighting, renewable energy, media and various other industries. The company serves in more than hundred nations and has an approximately a total of 295,000 employees working for GE in various countries (GE, 2017). The company is expanding its business in several countries through global expansion and extending its global visibility. One of those booming sector targeted by GE is the transportation sectors of Nigeria. General Electric will be performing its international business in the transportation sector of Nigeria and for the same it will require to have an adequate knowledge of the international trade, cross cultural management and the marketing mix. The report will present all such key factor o that the international business of GE can be successful.

The one of the key strength of GE is its diverse portfolio as it comprises of software, oil, lighting, transportation, healthcare, gas, finance, energy, motors, consumer electronics, aviation, etc. Such a diverse portfolio offers high competitive benefit to the company in terms of market share, growth, and revenue and customer base. The second key strength of General Electric is its extensive research and development team, investment and competence with an extended workforce. The company invests a huge amount of funds in the research and development which offers innovative technology and advance expertise to the company which not only help in attaining competitive benefits but also in fetching the attention of the customers. The next strength of GE is the well-structured and balanced revenue stream among a number of sectors which help the company in reducing its business risk. General Electric is one of the largest global players which operate in more than hundred different overseas countries. The company is not only famous for its global operations but also for its continuous innovations, green practices and healthy workplace environment for the employees. GE maintains a strong balance business revenue model in spite of the fact that the maximum i.e. around fifty percent of the business operations of the company is outside US. All these above mentioned strengths are the key factors behind the strong competitive benefits attained by the company as well as for its rapid success and growth (Kissinger, 2017).

Strategic analysis

The huge dependence on the suppliers is one of the biggest weaknesses of GE as the company is highly dependent on its suppliers for the continuous supply of raw materials which cause a limit of the effective performance of the company. This factor is a weakness which impacts the various industrial operating sectors of the company too in terms of the supply fluctuations of the raw materials and the business vulnerability to the price. The lighting, energy connection, transportation and aviation are those segments of GE which re highly vulnerable to the market dynamics. As well as the weak performance of the markets have a negative influence on the overall global performance of the company. The next weakness of the company is that being a strong and global brand, the company is easily targeted for litigation in case of minor and small issues also which can be resolved easily too. Thus, all these weaknesses and the weak performance of the gas and oil sector of GE are those factors which act as the barricades for the success of the company (Metzger, 2014).

There are several opportunities also for GE in the business market such as the various buyouts and the global acquisitions for strengthening and expanding the existing business operations. The other opportunity for GE is the increasing demand for the commercial airplanes and the for boosting up the growth of top line there must be development of the new pipeline of the agreements and contracts. GE also has a vast opportunity in the emerging economies for the building up of the complete cities (Kissinger, 2017).

There are few years for GE which the company is required to have appropriate strategies to deal with those threats. The threats which are required to be sustained comprises of to deal with the strict environmental regulatory norms and government polices to have business operations in foreign countries as these police and laws can negatively impact the business operations of GE. Being a string and recognized international brand there is also a significant threat of the political as well as economic risks. There are also threats related to the continuously increasing IT security issues and the high economic recessions and fluctuating currencies which can pose a major impact on the global business operations of GE (Metzger, 2014).

Stakeholders in the international business

                                               

(Source: Bucifal, 2009)

The strategic development of General Electric comprise of basically six key factors on which the company has high level of focus and consideration to achieve utmost success and growth. In the strategic development process of GE, the first key segment if the customer value as it is the strategy of the company to offer high value to its customers so that they can be remained reliable to GE. The second key part is innovation as GE invest huge amount of capital of research and development so that it can have continuous innovation in its products and services and can retain the target market. The third phase is the leadership in technology as it is a primary strategy of the company by which it leads the market and offers the customers with the most innovative technological solutions in all the sectors. The next segment focused in the strategic development process is the commercial excellence as the company keeps its high emphasis on generating high-class sales and marketing capability to achieve high competitive benefits. The next focused phase is globalization as it is the primary strategy of GE to search for opportunities and expand in global regions (Bucifal, 2009). The company also has growth leaders as its one of the core strategy to strategically develop its business as it effectively inspire as well as develop individuals and help its customers so that it can maintain it market leadership.

As per the stakeholder theory and the other international business concepts, there is a huge significance and role of stakeholders in the success and growth of the business. The stakeholders required to be managed by HE in its international business includes both internal as well as external stakeholders. The internal stakeholders comprises of owners, managers and the employees. The external stakeholders comprises of customers, shareholders, creditors, government, society and the suppliers (Meyer and Peng, 2016). Following are the stakeholders of GE and their role in the international business of the company.

Cross-cultural management and leadership

In the international business of GE, the shareholders and the Board of Directors play a vital role as they are the executive that hold a string position and amount of equity in the organisation. And thus, these groups of stakeholders have the power to introduce new ideas as well as to interrupt in decision making. The board of directors only decides that who all will be appointed in the company at the senior level positions (Park, Chidlow and Choi, 2014).

Other than the board of directors and the shareholders, the second group of stakeholders which has their major role in the international business of HE includes the managers and the owners. The owners are the one who governs the management of the company and have their participation in direct management. The managers only handle the business operations and the departments comprising research and development, human resources and the business decisions on management level (Meyer and Peng, 2016).

The investors or the creditors are the key stakeholders of GE which have an influential power with them to decrease or increase the take in the company. General Electric also has a number of investors and creditors which assist the company in its global ventures and the financial performance of the company is also indicated through these investors. Thus, in the global business of GE, there is a vital role of the creditors to have strong and sound finance for operating the business with utmost efficiency (Lawrence and Weber, 2014).

There is also a major and significant role of Government and the society in the international business as one is the ruling and governing body and the other is the one which will be impacted the most with the overseas business operations of General Electric. There is a need to have a good association with the Government so that there can be saved the business from unnecessary litigations (Meyer and Peng, 2016).

The other stakeholders which affect the international business of GE include suppliers, customers and the employees. The employees are the one which will carry the business operations in the overseas nation and thus it is necessity that the company must maintain a strong and good association with its employees so that the business can be performed in an effective manner. The customers are also the stakeholders which are the one which can be the reason behind the success or the failure of the business of General Electric. In the international business, there is a major need of fetching the attention of the customers so that there can be gained growth and sustainability (Verbeke, 2013).

International trade and investment

General Electric is planning to expand its business in the transport sector of Nigeria which one of the fastest developing and booming sectors of the world but being a US based company, there exist a number of cultural differences and disparities which make the international business a bit difficult for the company and thus to manage the cultural differences between both the nations (Moran, Abramson and Moran, 2014). Following part of the report will comprise of the country or regional cultural comparison of US and Nigeria where General Electric is planning to expand its transportation business. The cultural analysis will be grounded on the Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory.

                                           

The first dimension is the power distance which is used to analyze the inequality exists in eth country. The high power distance illustrates the association based upon autocratic power which depicts that there is unequal power distribution (Basabe and Ros, 2005). Whereas, the decrease power distance shows that there is high involvement of the people as well as they put up questions in front of the higher authorities at the time of decision making (Hofstede, 2011).

Power distance of Nigeria is very much high in respect with that of Nigeria. It illustrates that there is projected that there will be less involvement of the people in organisational decision making. Thus, if GE is expanding its business in Nigeria then it is required to have autocratic decision making and have less involvement of the people in organisational decision making (Ang and Van Dyne, 2015).

The individualism dimension shows the interpersonal connection (Okpara and Kabongo, 2011). Increased level shows that there is more of individualistic culture whereas the low level shows that there is collectivism in the country (Newman, 2014).

Individualism dimension in Nigeria is extremely low which shows that the major concern is in respect with the organisation and the societies and there follows collectivism approach in the nation (Ferraro and Briody, 2017). On the other hand, in US there is comparatively very high level of individualism. Thus, GE is required to develop a more collectivist approach in dealing and performing the business operations and must take decisions from a society and organisational point of view rather than on the basis of the individual perspective (Keller, et al., 2015).

International marketing

Tis particular dimension reflects the tolerance of the country in respect with the various probabilities of danger and uncertainties (Shackleton, and Ali, 1990).

The UAI of Nigeria is 55 which show moderate level of uncertainty avoidance. The country adopts moderate level of practices for sustaining the effect of uncertainties. In compare with that of US, the UAI index is 46 which show some level of similarity between the two (Babatunde and Low, 2015). Thus, while performing business in Nigeria, GE is also require to have a little more focus upon the practices so that the business is not much impacted with the uncertainties (Banks, 2015).

Masculinity dimension reflects the difference in the genders and their significance in the societies. Increase level of masculinity shows that there is high value posed by the material things and low level shows increased feminism and significances of relationships in the society (Newman, 2014).

The masculinity index is roughly same in both the nations and thus GE is not required to give much attention to this factor as it is not a cultural disparity which is require to be managed (Adegboye, 2013).

LTO shows the way the country deals with the future issues and present challenges by having a connection with the past situations. High level of LTO shows that people are more concerned about their goals and future whereas the decrease LTO depicts high stability level (Shi, and Wang, 2011).

The LTO index of Nigeria is 16 which is comparatively a little high with that of US. Therefore, it is not much concern in respect with this cultural difference and in both the nations, the individuals are less goal oriented (Thomas and Peterson, 2017).

For effectively managing the international business in Nigeria, the company is required to adopt a number of strategies and approaches. Following are some of the steps which are required to be taken to manage the cross culture organisation and the cultural issues arising in the international business:

It is necessary that the company and the managing authority must have a complete knowledge of the foreign culture, the social norms, perception of people, value system, and various other cultural beliefs of they host country so that while performing business in the overseas nation, the organisation may not suffer from all such issues and there develop a strong level of cooperation and understanding so that GE can run smooth business operations in Nigeria (Adekola and Sergi, 2016).

Global business operations

To manage the cross cultural organisations, there is a need to provide the cross cultural training to the employees and the other members of the company. The cross cultural training are helpful in offering adequate knowledge of the host country which helps in operating successfully in the culturally diverse region (Nahavandi, 2016). There must be offered cultural, language, business etiquettes and various other social and cultural based knowledge to the participants so that they can be aware and manage working in cross culture organisations (Deresky, 2017).

Nigerian economy has been observed to be on rise and also on the basis of the survey executed by World Bank Nigerian GDP at Purchasing Power Party (PPP) has been addressed to a hike of triple that is from $170 billion in 2000 to $451 Billion in 2012. Growth has also been observed of 6.3%. And this can be considered one of the biggest reasons for General Electrics of making establishments and expansion of transportation in Nigerian economy (Yarbrough, B.V. and Yarbrough, 2014). Moreover, Technology has been considered as one of the prime driving factor for any of the economy and also for the business corporations. Technological advancements will aid the entity in offering and serving with the best quality of products and services to the potential consumers (Adeoje, 2016). The Nigerian economy has been observed to have an estimated 1400 internet hosts and 45 million users and this will be proven as one of the biggest advantage for General Electrics (GE) while making the promotions in in the economy. The economy has a large population which offers an advantage of a huge pool of workforce.  This will be proven beneficial for the business corporation while establishing the business in Nigeria as the human resource is one of the most valuable assets for any of the business organization. While expanding the business legal elements play a prominent role in determining the worth of the business venture in the specific region (McGovern, 2017). The legal system of the judicial arm of any of the economy is held liable for maintaining order, resolving business conflicts, as well as tax economy outputs etc. There are number of legal factors which are required to be considered as an essential component while making the decisions for expanding the business, these factors include, health and safety of the workforce, sense of equity, advertisement standards, trade agreements, which addresses policies and laws related to foreign enterprises etc.  

Technology and the international business

On the basis of the research executed from the African business magazine, it has been analyzed that the Nigerian economy has been rated as the top FDI destination in Africa (Africanbusinessmagazine 2013). It has been observed that the foreign investors has been coming in masses globally, over the last few years and they have been benefited from the current congenial business environment which has been created by the governing authorities or offering advantages and stepping up the volume of investments. It has also been noted that in January alone, the foreign direct investments inflow into Nigeria was marked at an estimated number of $5.2bn (N800bn) (Chan, 2016). And a prediction is made that there will be rise in this figure. On the basis of the 2012 World Investment Report, prepared by the Geneva-based United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), Nigeria has been ranked as largest destination for the FDI After experiencing the favorable investment climate and high returns on the investments from the Nigerian economy, Due to a huge pool of investors the economy is found at a financially stable position and which will be proven as an advantageous situation for General Electrics while thinking of the business expansion in  Nigeria (Farole and Winkler, 2014).

Marketing intelligence is the methodology and he data sources which is utilized for obtaining information from the business environment for the purpose of decision making. The information obtained can be done from internal or external environment (Christopher, 2016). General Electrics can make use of the below mentioned tools for collecting the marketing intelligence data.

• Market research
• Competitive information
• Internal databases
• Competitive intelligence

Market research is the option which can be chosen by the business corporation for making the collection of market intelligence, Market research comprises of the process which can be utilized for collecting the data about the target market or the consumers (Monczka et al., 2015). This mechanism has been considered as an integral part for developing business strategies..

The term market analysis consists of the approaches which are made by the business entity for getting aware about the current position of the products and services. This process involves primary and secondary research methodologies which will divulge the current position of General Electrics and the product or the services stand relative to the completion. In detail the market analysis for a business organization will involve the market size, growth rate, profitability, mediums of distribution etc. For instance, the business entity will be getting aware of the intensification of the competitive environment and also about the competitors which will come across (Wisner, Tan and Leong, 2014). The business entity will be facing competition from Hitachi, Honeywell international, Simens AG, Textron etc.  These are some of the leading brands in the sector and General Electrics will be facing tough completion from these brands. By making market research the business corporation will be able to get the relevant data in advance. This will assist the firm in the development of strategies and plans and also for tackling these barriers. A detailed market analysis if conducted will also let the company aware about the changing marketing trends and the consumer behavior, their needs and preferences and which will aid the entity in developing the products and services as per the requirements of the consumers.   

The process of marketing segmentation is the bifurcation done in the consumers on the basis of various elements such as demographic, psychographic and geographic (Hollensen, 2015). The below presented is the analysis of the segmentation of the various marketing aspects for General Electrics.

Demographics: The process of segmentation creates a division on the basis of various variables and demographic segmentation has its own variables under which the bifurcation has been presented such as age, gender, income, occupation, religion caste etc.  In case of income level, the transportation services can be developed or designed as per the income of the targeted consumers such share taxi’s for middle level and low level income group. Moreover, in gender the business entity needs to develop some special facilities for females (Qiu, 2014). For instance, special night cabs for working women’s etc. Occupation and profession is also another segment in which the business entity can introduce premium and luxurious cab services.  

Psychographic segmentation consists of the various groups on the basis of their lifestyles, interests perceptions, opinions etc. This segmentation process is quite similar to the behavioral segmentation. These variables play a crucial role in the segmentation processes such as in lifestyle the consumers may be of school going, a working professional or a traveller. There will be differences in the lifestyles of all these and hence the business entity will have to consider all the available consumer variables and their lifestyles while developing the services. Social class is another variable which is considered as an integral part of the segmentation process (Berg, 2016). The social class is all about the buying power of the consumer which is affected by the background, spending patterns and as well as income of the consumers. Special consideration should be given towards this variable.

Geographic segmentation has been considered as one of the basic form of marketing segmentation which is made focused on the units of geography. This segmentation consists of the variables such as location, languages etc. The business entity will have to consider these variables while developing the services for the consumer segments. For instance, the special training sessions should be provided to the cab drivers for dealing with the consumers of different religion and languages.

The below presented is the marketing mix of General Electrics in Nigeria.

Products: The business entity GE transportation is the subsidiary firm of General Electric. The business corporation is one of the leading manufacturers of the equipment’s of railroad, mining, drilling and energy generation industries (Bahasin 2017). The firm is headquartered in Chicago and the main manufacturing unit is located in Fort Worth Texas. The major segments in the product line of the business corporation are rail products, propulsion products and battery products. The products are developed as per the needs and preferences of the consumers. This provides the business entity with a satisfied customer base.

Price: Prices are the value which is paid by the consumers for the consumption of the products and services. The business entity requires developing appropriate pricing strategy for attracting the consumers and offering them a high level of satisfaction. This will ensure a high productivity level. As General Electric offers transportation services through various means hence the prices differ according to the medium of transportation. For instance, the rail transportation is the means which quotes higher pricing to the consumers.

Place: This term is referred to the distribution channels or the availability of the products which is required to be done by the business corporation on right place and at right time. As the business entity is dealing in transportation services the availability of services can be made easily available.

Promotion: Advertising and generating awareness of the products and services for increasing the sale and profitability is the process of promotion. The business corporation has a varied range of available options for making promotion. As Nigeria have a huge pool of Internet users and due to which the online means can be used by the business corporation for making promotion.

Value chain analysis is the mechanism in which the business corporation will be making identification of the primary and supporting operations which assist in adding value to the final products and after this process analysis us also executed for bringing minimization in the cost of the products for maximizing the differentiation. This mechanism refers to the internal operations and functionalities in which the business corporation is involved in transforming the inputs and outputs. Value chain analysis is a strategy tool which is utilized by the firm for analyzing the internal activities of the firm (Jurevicius 2013). The prime objective of the value chain analysis is to provide the business entity will the most valuable operations and also in which operations improvement is required for offering the business entity the position of competitive advantage. By making value chain analysis General Electrics will be getting aware of the advantages and disadvantages of competitive sustainability. By making use of this approach the business entity will be competing through differentiation advantage and will also be performing the activities better that the rivals. For instance, if GE is competing through cost advantage then the entity will try to perform the internal activities at a lower cost as compared to competing brands. And when the business entity is able to produce the products at a lower price that the market cost or to provide the superior products the firm will be enjoying higher revenues. On the basis of research made by M.Porter the generic value chain model has been introduced in which the value chain is representing the all the activities in which the firm is made involved for producing goods and services. This process adds value to the final products directly.

The term supply chain has been made concerned to the mechanism or tool which can be used for identifying growth opportunities associated to the business corporation for the region in which the business is operated.  The process of supply chain plays an empirical role in each and every industry and in simpler terms the process of making the goods and the services available for the consumption is termed as the process of supply chain (Camoinassociates 2017). The process of supply chain starts from purchasing the raw materials then turning it into final products and making the goods available to the consumers. Moreover, additional value is also added to the products as it moves with the supply chain. One of the biggest advantages of this process is that it will aid General Electrics. The process of Supply chain management has been made concerned with the functionalities which are associated to bringing a hike in the customer value and level of satisfaction and also the business entity can attain a position of competitive advantage. For instance, it is said that a definitive purpose or goal of any compelling store network administration framework is to diminish stock (Feenstra, 2015). The process comprises of varied range of operations and procedures .i.e. from advancement of the products, sourcing, era, and coordination's, and moreover, the database structures are estimated for organizing the operations.

Providing quality of services for serving the consumers with a high level of satisfaction has been considered as one of the prime objective of General Electrics. For managing the quality of services and products the business corporation can make use of Total quality management (TQM), which is an approach for improving quality and performance for meeting or exceeding the customer expectations (Murray 2017). This goal can be attained by the integration of all the quality related functions and operations operated throughout the organization. This approach looks at all the quality measures which are utilized by the entity including management of quality design and development, maintenance, and quality control and quality assurance. This process considers all the measures which are used at all levels and also involves all employees.

The entity is in the business of realizing the potential and is also a global technology leader and supplier of equipment’s, solutions and services to the mining, marine, rail, stationery, drilling industries. The products and the innovations of the entity aids the consumers in delivering the goods and services with greater speed by making use of advanced manufacturing techniques and mechanisms (Getransportation 2017). The digital solution offers data driven insights for improving efficiency and leverage. One of the innovations of the entity is Predix- which is a cloud based operating mechanism. GE store is a global exchange of technology, knowledge and tools across all the GE business and which aids in ultimate results. The business entity has combined decades of leadership with the cutting edge data science and analytics acumen for developing an efficient, productive and reliable digital rail eco-system. Moreover, the business entity can also make use of technological advancements in number of operations and functionalities for improving the quality of offering services to the consumers (Getransportation 2017).

Conclusion

In the limelight of the above executed analysis it has been inferred that General Electric is a transportation service provider organization in US and has been planning to perform international business operations in Nigeria. From this report, it can be concluded that there is a vital need of considering a number of factor while performing international business such as the various strategies which help GE in having a successful business venture in Nigeria. The report also stated the significance of stakeholders and the key role in the global business and its success as GE is required to pay effective attention to the stakeholders for performing a smooth transportation business in Nigeria. The report also concluded that managing cross culture organisation is a tough task but managing it in an appropriate manner benefitted the organisation in number of ways and also support in achieving an increased level of cooperation in the host country. The report also concluded the significance of analyzing international trade and role of FDI in a successful business venture. There is also played a vital role of having effective marketing mix, marketing segmentation and marketing analysis to fetch the attention of the customers and have continuous growth of the business. From the former parts of the report, it can be analyzed that the value chain and supply chain of GE is strong and robust to manage effective business chain in Nigeria and it also take use of sound technology to gain strong market share.

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