GE Bids Goodbye to the Electric Bulb
Thomas Edison “invented” the electric bulb. The company that he founded later became GE . After 125 years, GE is dropping the electric bulb from its portfolio . We don’t learn from history – not even from recent history. The previous CEO famously brought in an acknowledged expert in strategy and innovation. It may be safe to assume that endless meetings would have been held, senior managers would have gone through intensive training, and new “strategies” would have been developed. Frank Vermeulen is a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the London Business School. In what is surely a provocative hypothesis, he says that “ new strategies ” are often not strategies at all . He adds for good measure: “We want to be number one or number two in all the markets in which we operate” is one of those. One wonders whether he was referring to the legendary Jack Welch . As I have written earlier, GE has been on a downward slide for over fifteen years.