20500198 entry #10

Change the business portfolios as fast as you can.

Stoves, refrigerators, and other appliances used to be the core of General Electric's business. But now the hot growth is elsewhere. So they are getting out of the that business. Its appliance business represents a small fraction of the company's revenues, about $7 billion of its $173 billion total in 2007. CEO Jeffrey Immelt has said the company's future growth will largely be fueled by its health-care and energy businesses, much of it from outside the U.SBack in the early 1980s Intel's Andy Grove took the radical step of shifting the company's focus away from basic computer memory chips, toward microprocessors, the "brains" of the machine. The decision, which was controversial and shocking to some, led to unprecedented growth of Intel revenues, profits, and prestige.
When we find that some business will not grow, we should get out of there. The faster, the more profit will be caught. Under Jack Welch, GE bought and sold hundreds of companies. I can sure that was the original source of rapid growing of GE. We have to flexible about our business portfolio. Don't love a certain business. Do you want to be remembered as an icon in the decreasing business, or do you want to give yourself a chance to become iconic of something in the 21st century? It's upon your choice.







source: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2008/id20080515_212057.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_news+%2B+analysis