Jack Welch used to say around 1986
Look at Westinghouse. They got rid of all their factories, and when a customer orders a turbine they just write a spec to Mitsubishi and they build and ship it.
Why does GE need factories?
Look what happen
He started what Imelt finished
GE now is in a similar condition for the same reasons
How can GE recover?
Its simple, it can't recover. Ive been thinking about this exact statement for the past 6 months. Its quite the legacy for the past 2 CEOs.
Yep, this is a great post even though nobody responded - it hits the target.
With time, we kept outsourcing a ton of our core competencies. Fair enough, you develop a good finance set skills and learn how to sell better. This will work for some time, but at some point you'll have to innovate (that's exactly what we need right now) and if all is outsourced, you will not have the skill needed.
Game over.