India IMLPs Roundtable with Charlene Begley

This is first time that GE held its quarterly Corporate Executive Council (CEC) outside of the US and inside India. Being the growth engine that India is, this was an obvious choice, and it gave us this wonderful opportunity to interact with senior GE leaders.

Two and half days and a flight later we found ourselves all suited up for a round table with one of the fastest growing leaders in GE. And, if the engaging town hall with Jeff Immelt earlier in the morning was anything to go by, we were in for a great day of interaction with senior GE leaders! With Vic Bhagat (CIO - GG&O) and Amarjeet Singh (CIO India) also joining Charlene for the round table, we hoped that the meeting would be fruitful, and it sure lived up to its expectations.

The meeting started with a high energy level that Charlene brought into the room as soon as she walked in. "I'm excited to meet you all, let’s do a quick round of introductions," she said, as she walked from the door to her seat. After the introductions, the conversation varied from IT Strategy, the GPB (growth playbook), careers in GE, and Charlene's advice for IMLPs.

Click below to review the transcript of the IMLP interactions with Charlene, Vic, and Amarjeet:

Rajesh: IT has always been associated with repair of laptops and desktops, what are your plans in dispelling this perception within the business?

Charlene: As an IT team we need to change the perception of "only provides laptops and desktops" that many business users and leaders have, to business enablers and who provide new products like Office 2010 and Windows 7. We spent time with each of the businesses trying to understand their expectations from IT and then incorporated all of that into the IT GPB. It was also a great way to sit with senior leadership such as Jeff and get their buy-ins and commitment to IT. I can tell you that today Jeff thinks about and "gets" IT more often than he ever used to! The IT GPB is long term vision and strategy for next 3 years.  One of the pain points that business leaders expressed was the turnaround time of the helpdesks - so if the site is big we would be working to have a separate helpdesk. 

Biraja: Charlene, you have been on both sides of the spectrum, managing the business and leading IT now. Do you find that business and IT are completely in sync or do you see opportunities where IT and business can be in more synergy?

Charlene: Well I definitely see IT as being an enabler for business. I feel IT has been languishing in the background for way too long, which is not how it should be. We should see ourselves as partners to business and see how we can bring in value. The way we perceive ourselves and how we project ourselves to business has to reflect this as well, and the IT GPB is a step in that direction.

Praveen: As a part of the India growth story we often hear about Healthcare and Energy, what is H&BS’s (GE Home & Business Solutions, includes GE Appliances & Lighting) strategy for growing in the emerging markets like India?

Charlene: H&BS is completely different to the Healthcare and Energy businesses. I consider the Appliances business very strong in the North American region, and its penetration into the Asian markets is very low, hence we focus more there. I believe the Lighting business in India has got a lot more potential, with the growing infrastructure needs and industrial growth. We want to concentrate on those sectors and grow the business.

Nachiket: Are we benchmarking ourselves to any particular organizations on technology usage and efficient processes?

Charlene: There is no such thing as a single perfect organization; but, yes, in pockets we learn from other businesses, for example IT for Banking has strong processes, as well as IT for Supply chain in Retail and Cyber Security from Government agencies.

Bhargav: With long term focus of bringing IT into the foreground, is consolidation in terms of IT processes and people on the cards?

Charlene: At this point of time we have no agenda of doing any consolidation of tools and applications across businesses as these are used as separate functionality in each business. But cyber security/network security would be driven from the GE Corporate which makes things more effective and simpler. Optimizing and consolidating our datacenters would be one area that would be worked over the period of the next 2 months. There will not be any consolidation in terms of people.

Ruchika: Collaboration is one of the strategic initiatives in the GPB for 2011. Although GE is investing a lot in technology for collaboration, are there any plans of bringing cultural change in terms of motivating people to adopt the collaboration tools?

Vic Bhagat: Collaboration tools would enable us to have direct relationships with customers, connect engineering teams faster, and better improve our productivity. There is an ocean of knowledge within GE, so we need to ramp up even the passive collaboration to make the best use of it.

Biraja: Charlene, I have a question around our IT Strategy. Did we as GE, come to a point where we realized we have outsourced more than we should have? And where do we draw a line between what to outsource and what to retain?

Charlene: I completely agree that we outsourced way too much and we need to bring back the core competencies to GE. We are making a conscious effort to change that. The establishment of the AMSTC at Michigan is a concrete step in that direction. We have hired some excellent people with technical capabilities to come work for us. So yes, we would like to bring back and retain competencies that are core to the way we do business and which are critical. But having said that, we also see great value in the GDC program and our outsource partners. So we will keep engaging them as well.

Khaja: Charlene you have a knack of picking up roles in businesses that were not doing so well and turning them around. Were these conscious decisions on your part?

Charlene: I love challenges. What you might look at as a bad business is something that I look at as an exciting and challenging opportunity.  I Joined GE 23 years ago as an FMP (Financial Management Program) and then moved to CAS (Corporate Audit Staff) where I did rotations in various businesses. Later, I was part of the Jack Welch to Jeff Immelt transition team which helped me in meeting many leaders in GE and be part of S2 (Session 2) and GPB meetings. There were many challenging assignments from which I never backed out.  

Rajesh: As an erstwhile FMP and CAS member what is your advice to the Leadership Program members?

Charlene: Stick to the basics, get the job done, get the right expectations from the ALs (Assignment Leaders) and have them properly captured  in goals - which are a must.

Differentiators would be:

•         Knowledge of the business in which you are doing rotations
•         Knowing which areas the business are making money
•         Making sure you align with business initiatives
•         As a program member making sure to ask questions
•         Expressing your views in meetings   

Overall, this was a great learning opportunity for all of us, and Charlene’s energy surely rubbed off on each of us and inspired us to give our best for GE. Also, the fact that Charlene took time out of her extremely busy schedule to exclusively meet the IMLPs speaks volumes of the commitment and faith GE and its leaders put into its leadership programs.

Written by : Rajesh Devaram, 2nd rotation IMLP