This is General Electric Company mission statement overview in 2013. For more information on how to write a mission statement, please refer to our article.
Company Background
| Name | General Electric Company |
| Logo |  |
| Industries served | Conglomerate |
| Geographic areas served | Worldwide |
| Headquarters | U.S. |
| Current CEO | Jeffrey Immelt |
| Revenue | $ 147.359 billion (2012) |
| Profit | $ 13.641 billion (2012) |
| Employees | 305,000 (2012) |
| Main Competitors | Hitachi, Ltd., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.¸ Siemens AG, The 3M Company, United Technologies Corp. and many other companies. |
Mission
GE mission statement 2013 |
GE doesn’t have an official mission statement, but presents it through GE Works Equation. It can be found in the picture below.  This is how GE explains it: “We have a relentless drive to invent things that matter: innovations that build, power, move and help cure the world. We make things that very few in the world can, but that everyone needs. This is a source of pride. To our employees and customers, it defines GE.” |
| Evaluation | ||
| Does it include…? | ||
| Customers | Products/ Services | Markets |
| No | No | Yes |
| Technology | Concern for survival | Philosophy |
| Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Self-concept | Concern for public image | Employees |
| Yes | No | Yes |
| Does it mention values like…? | Customer or product-oriented? | |
| Citizenship | Teamwork | Customer-oriented |
| No | No | Score |
| Excellence | Integrity | |
| No | No | 2.5/4.5 |
(This evaluation framework is composed of the guidelines listed in our article: Mission Statement for Success)
Overview
General Electric mission has been evaluated 2.5 points out of 4.5, indicating an average level. It lacks 3 components and doesn’t mention who are firm’s customers, what product and services the company offers and doesn’t express its concern for public image. Even though, the company has a separate statement about its social responsibility, this should’ve been at least mentioned in the mission statement. The statement doesn’t mention any of the four values used in our evaluation. Although the company provides GE’s values in a separate statement, some of them should’ve been included in the mission as well. GE’s mission is customer-oriented, which means that it focuses on customers and their needs rather than on what products to sell or services to offer.
In conclusion, GE’s statement is not a conventional mission statement but it achieves what it is intended to – to communicate corporate’s purpose or ‘reason for being’ to its stakeholders.
Sources
- General Electric (2011). 2011 Annual Report. Available at: http://www.ge.com/ar2011/#!section=letter-to-shareowners