Study the case study and comment on the following question:

What are the major competitive issues General Electric faces when managing

cooperative strategies?

The world has many very large corporations. Wesfarmers, which started as a farmers cooperative, is relatively small by world standards but owns an array of significant business units, including the Coles empire (Coles, BI-LO, Liquorland etc.), Bunnings, Officeworks, Kmart, a range of industrial chemical firms, some fertiliser firms, some industrial safety firms, and a few other units as well. It is extremely well regarded as a diversified firm. General Electric (GE) is much larger; it would be easier to list business areas in which it does not compete than to list those in which it sells products. GE competes in 16 different industries: appliances, aviation, consumer electronics, electrical distribution, energy, entertainment, These General Electric wind turbines in France each produce 1.5 finance, gas, health care, lighting, locomotives, oil, megawatts of energy. software, water, weapons and wind turbines. As one can Source: Alamy Stock Photo/D Dennis Chang - France see from this list, these industries are quite diverse. Yet there are similarities among several of them. In fact, GE's businesses are grouped in four divisions: GE Capital, GE content that is critical of GE. Additionally, in the past GE Energy, GE Technology Infrastructure and GE Home & was criticised for the poor environmental records of some Business Solutions. In recent years, more than 50 per of its businesses. Finally, it had reductions in stock value cent of GE's annual revenue has come from its financial " during the first decade of the 21st century GE has bounced services businesses. Thus, it could be labelled a services back from these problems. It has worked hard to overcome company with a strong industrial component. In 2015 GE and correct its environmental problems. Today, it is a major was ranked the eighth-largest corporation in the Fortune player in the 'clean energy' industry, such as wind turbines 500. It is the only company that was listed in the initial and solar power. GE is also beginning to experience strong Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896 that remains on it growth from its investments in emerging economies such as China and Brazil. In both of these countries, GE has today. For the last 119 years, GE has achieved an average made major business investments working with local annual increase in its stock value of 5.8 per cent. These data suggest that GE has an impressive history partners and has developed R&D centres as well. and has experienced a significant amount of success. It is A common strategy to achieve growth (and diversification) for GE over the years has been mergers one of only a few widely diversified firms to achieve such success. GE is a highly influential global corporation. Its and acquisitions. For example, in 2011 GE acquired a CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, was selected by US President Obama French company, Converteam, for US$3.2 billion. This to chair an advisory group on economic and job creation company will provide support equipment for GE's wind turbine business. The years 2014 and 2015 were also lively concerns. However, GE has experienced some 'bumps in the road' along the way This is to be expected because for GE. In this period it acquired French firm Alstom it is difficult to manage a large, widely diversified set of for US$17 billion, announced it would sell its property portfolio, and sold most of its finance units and also its businesses. For example, it has been criticised for its control health care finance units. over media it owns, such as US television network NBC. GE has restricted NBC reporters from reporting on certain Sources: Wikipedia, 2015, General Electric, hups://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ General_Electric, General Electric, 2015, Fact sheet, http://wwwge.com/