Gecas vision: to be present in any market that offers a profit margin

Though GE does not have a vision or mission statement officially speaking, the introduction to their annual reports speak of their mission and goals for the future. The 2014 annual report states “ GE imagines things others don’t, builds things others can’t and delivers outcomes that make the world work better. GE brings together the physical and digital worlds in ways no other company can. In its labs and factories and on the ground with customers, GE is inventing the next industrial era to move, power, build and cure the world.”

Overall Strategy to Maintain a Competitive Advantage

The core of GE Capital Aviation Services’ (GECAS) strategy is the same as its parent company GE. Essentially it is utilizing the large amount of assets and resources they own in order to provide almost every sort of service and good that have even a small sort of demand in any industry they enter. GE and all of its subsidiaries also use what they call the GE Toolkit. This includes a six step six sigma methodology which focuses on define, measure, analyze, design, optimize, and verify. It also consists of a Change Acceleration Process and Quality Management System among other tools. The other core key of GE’s strategy for a competitive advantage is that they have placed an emphasis on lowering the barriers to sharing information and technology among different departments. This allows departments to finish projects sooner and get the according products to the marketplace sooner as well.

In accordance with GE’s strategy, GECAS offers a wide range of products, from numerous different jet types, freighters, helicopters, and individual parts. Because almost any product they offer costs a considerable amount (though relative to each customer), some companies may not be able to afford the whole price upfront. It is because of this that GECAS also offers financing products and services as well as rent and lease options. Another important part of their strategy is their consulting and advisory businesses. Through their subsidiary “ Avia,” GECAS consults on everything from route development, technical, and marketing help to both existing and new airports. They also consult with investors on the potential profitability of airports they may be wanting to invest in and then proceeding to aid them for a time after a purchase is made.

Structure to Meet Customer Demands

GE Aviation has a great supply chain methodology called “ Teaming” where they make sure that all teams in the organization are a line in terms of the company goals. It is structured in five phases(Jones, 2014):

• Get Ready: Leadership learns teaming and develops initial strategy for teaming roll-out.
• Launch: Individuals become oriented to the team and work together to determine team dynamics.
• Journey: Each unit begins to define accountability while determining day-to-day responsibilities.
• Ownership: Units begin to take ownership and accountability of their process, product and duties.
• Growth: Units are functioning as self-sustained, self-directed work teams; always looking for improvement and growth opportunities.

Timeliness is key for GE to achieve customer demand a good supply chain is extremely important for efficiency. making sure that all teams are assigned properly to the right tasks will help the flow of the process in the organization. With better flow, demand will be met quicker and with better quality. The structure of teaming will create a great culture and good atmosphere of the employees to perform better and be more creative at tackling each problem that they will face. They will take on great responsibilities and teams will working together and express and consolidate each other to help better meet demand .

Environmental Challenges

As a newly appointed General Manager of GE Aviation, I have to contend with environmental challenges that the organization encounters in the course of its endeavors. The most initial are the disposal of scrap that remains after making craft engines. In most cases, the materials are made of industrial metals that have poisonous traces. Mercury and polonium happen to be heavily used in the manufacture of craft engines. In this context, the disposal of remnants of these materials poses significant and alarming challenge both to me as the General Manager of GE Aviation and the whole organization by extension. Punitive environmental related laws have been instituted to curb environmental degradation. It would be utmost responsibility to ensure that the organization is not subjected to heavy fines thanks to flouting these strict environmental laws (Lange, 2008).

Another environmental challenge that I have to put into tentative consideration emanates from the emissive capacity and power of the craft engines. Apparently, there has been a clamor from environmentalist concerning the need to control the rate at which carbon is emitted in the air. The salient issue towards this perspective is the desire to protect the delicate ozone layer. In this context, it is both my moral and professional obligation to ensure that the craft engines produced by GE Aviation do not emit harmful quantities of carbon. On the same note, it would be prudent if I put into consideration the volume of noise generated by these craft components. Of late, noise pollution has been a serious environmental concern. As a General Manager affiliated to GE Aviation, I have to ensure the craft components manufactured by the organization produce noise that is of tolerable levels. All these environmental concerns would be implemented via rigorous testing of the craft components (Lange, 2008).

Culture Needs for Success

When looking over vision and direction that GE wants to take I feel like the biggest part of the culture that will lead to success is giving the workers and teams freedom. The company talks about imagining and delivering things that others can’t, and to be able to do that it is important to give the workers that freedom and ability to think and work on creative ideas in as low stress of an environment as possible. If you put these innovative people in a high stress place where the management is always breathing down their backs they may not feel comfortable and that may in turn negatively affect the work that they are able to do. Also, with that freedom these innovative workers will also need a high tech culture. With the freedom to think and come up with cutting edge ideas the members of GE with need to right equipment to make these ideas and works come to life. Then finally, probably the most important aspect of the culture is that it needs to be a team and collaborative culture. It is very difficult for individuals to come up with world changing ideas on their own, but if you put the workers in a place where they will be able to bounce ideas and thoughts off of each other the chance of success with greatly increase. If these aspects are incorporated into the culture at the Lafayette plant I think that it will be able to get of to a fast and strong start and hopefully have plenty of success to follow.

Aligning Goals with Organizational Mission

In order to establish the culture that is need to maintain GE Aviation’s competitive advantage of utilizing teams work units to promote creativity and provide innovative products, the company needs to design jobs based on these goals. Using a motivational approach, jobs will be complex, interesting, and challenging which will encourage employees to work as effective and efficient as possible (Lepak, 2010, p. 112). This can be done by identifying the core job dimensions of The Job Characteristics Model and ensuring that each job is designed based on these dimensions. The core dimensions are: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback (Lepak, 2010, p. 112-113). In addition to job design, a collaborative culture made up of team based work units is essential to ensure information is easily shared between departments. This can be achieved by ensuring that all HR policies and practices are also aligned to promote teamwork and creativity.