$18.3 Billion ($148.6B total)

KEY EXECUTIVES:
Jeffrey R. Immelt, Chairman & CEO, General Electric
Jeff Bornstein, Sr. VP & Chief Financial Officer
John Flannery, President & CEO, GE Healthcare
Monish Patolawala, VP & Chief Financial Officer, GE Healthcare
Marcelo Mosci, President & CEO, U.S. and Canada Region
Rachel Duan, President & CEO, GE Healthcare China
Akihiko Kumagai, President & CEO, GE Healthcare Asia Pacific
Brian Masterson, VP, Global Supply Chain
Markus Ewert, Exec. VP, Business Development
Jean-Michel Malbrancq, President & CEO, GE Healthcare Europe
Milan Rao, President & CEO, GE Healthcare South Asia
Skander Malcolm, President & CEO, GE Healthcare Eastern and Africa Growth Markets
Kieran Murphy, President & CEO, Life Sciences
Jan De Witte, President & CEO, Healthcare IT
Carrie Eglinton Manner, President & CEO, Detection & Guidance Solutions
Henry Hummel, President & CEO, Molecular Imaging and Computed Tomography
Thierry Leclercq, President & CEO, Life Care Solutions
Eric Stahre, President & CEO, Global Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Anders Wold, President & CEO, Ultrasound

NO. OF EMPLOYEES: 51,000 (117,000)

GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS: Little Chalfont, U.K.

“Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked.”
— Elizabeth Berg, writer

In the fall of 2005, Google co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Calif. As he walked onstage for a question-and-answer session with event host John Battelle, the zealous crowd fell suddenly silent, waiting to hear Brin’s secret formula for entrepreneurial success.

Sensing the anxiety, Battelle cut straight to the chase with his first question. “What do you attribute Google’s incredible success to?” he asked.

The audience held its collective breath.

Brin responded quickly, answering with the kind of candor and self-assurance he’d likely give a routine engineering query: “The number one factor that contributed to our success was luck.”

Not hard work. Not perseverance. Not vision. Just plain luck.

Really? Is success truly serendipitous?

It is to some extent, argue Thor Muller and Lane Becker, co-founders of Get Satisfaction, an online community platform that enables companies to participate in ongoing Web-based conversations with customers. Brin’s answer, they claim, was not a dismissal of his impressive achievements, but rather a testament to the daunting alignment of factors required for Google-like commercial success.

In their 2012 book, “Get Lucky: How to Put Planned Serendipity to Work for You and Your Business,” Muller and Becker attribute Brin’s success to his ability to both recognize and capitalize on serendipity. The authors note that Brin combined a passion for his work, a commitment to his company’s purpose, and a determination to utilize those qualities in the best way possible.

The mix of motivation, instinct, accidental discoveries and passion shared by many wildly successful companies like Google are part of a business strategy Muller and Becker call “planned serendipity.”

“Accidents happen,” the pair note. “There’s nothing mystical about them—but it’s our practical ability to take advantage of the best accidents that transforms them from forgettable moments into incredible opportunities. This is the essence of planned serendipity, the kind of luck you make for yourself.”

General Electric’s management is well-versed in such luck. Eight years ago, the company’s chief financial officer (CFO) was attending a meeting in midtown Manhattan when he (fatefully?) ran into businessman/author/venture capitalist Peter S. Cohan, owner of a VC-management consulting firm. Recognizing the fortuitousness of the encounter, the CFO pulled Cohan aside to solicit his advice on improving GE stock.

Cohan suggested the company sell its stakes in NBC Universal, GE Capital (except for the parts involved in industrial equipment sales), and its Appliances unit. He also advised the CFO to invest more in businesses that compete in the jet engine, energy, and transportation industries. “For all I know, I could have been the fiftieth person to tell him the same thing,” Cohan wrote in his Forbes column earlier this year.

Or, maybe the CFO—now chairman/CEO of GE Capital—was just creating his own luck. Regardless, company executives followed Cohan’s advice to the letter, selling NBC Universal to Comcast for $23.2 billion in two separate transactions, unloading its Appliances unit last fall for $3.3 billion, and shedding most of its banking assets, beginning with 2014 spinoff of GE Capital’s private label credit card company Synchrony Financial in a $2.9 billion initial public offering. The company also is selling off the bulk of its commercial lending business, its leasing segment and all consumer banking platforms in an attempt to return to its roots as an industrial manufacturing powerhouse.

The downsizing, branded an “important financial pivot” by top executives, will erase one of the main legacies of past chief executive John F. Welch Jr., who gave GE ballast in the 1980s and 1990s by entering formerly non-competitive markets like finance and broadcasting. Perhaps more importantly, however, it will enable the company to align its portfolio and long-term growth strategy with the changing business environment.

The wide range of asset sales will help finance a huge return of money to shareholders, which eventually will reach $90 billion by 2018. More than half of that amount, or roughly $50 billion, will come from a stock repurchase, one of the biggest on record.

“It is important that you see 2014-2016 as a [financial] pivot,” Chairman/CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt told shareholders in a lengthy letter at the start of GE’s 2014 annual report. We expect to grow EPS each year. Industrial earnings should expand by more than 10 percent while Capital shrinks dramatically. We expect industrial earnings to be 75 percent of the total by 2016 and to return $50 billion to you in dividends and buyback. We are making GE a better company and are confident this will be reflected in the share price. Today, GE is a different company—a company in motion, a company that is well-positioned to seize this moment and lead...I am more confident than ever that our best days lie ahead.”

Certainly a tall order, considering the splendor of days past. In 2014 (year ended Dec. 31), revenue rose 6 percent and profit jumped 10 percent in the company’s seven industrial segments. Total backlog reached a record $261 billion, up $17 billion from 2013, bolstered by a 7 percent increase in Aviation backlog (to $134 billion) and a whopping 43 percent spike in Transportation backlog (to $21 billion). Moreover, total orders were up 7 percent last year due to a 10 percent hike in service orders, margins expanded to 16.2 percent, and shareholders received more than $11 billion through dividends and buybacks.

Nevertheless, the company did face its fair share of challenges in 2014: Only three of its industrial segments generated significant profits, shareholder return fell 7 percent, trailing the S&P 500, and GE Capital proceeds continued to shrink, slipping 3 percent to $42.7 billion, the firm’s latest annual report shows. The sales leaders included Power & Water, which grew revenue 11.5 percent to $27.5 billion; Oil & Gas, which expanded proceeds 10 percent to $18.6 billion; and Aviation, which increased sales 9.5 percent to $23.9 billion.

The Energy Management and Transportation segments failed to bear fruit last year, falling 3.3 percent ($7.3 billion) and 4 percent ($5.6 billion) respectively.

Sales flatlined in Appliances & Lighting, up 0.79 percent to $8.4 billion, and Healthcare, which recouped the $90 million it lost in 2013, growing sales 0.5 percent to $18.29 billion. And though healthcare equipment orders grew 17 percent, the segment nonetheless relinquished its No. 3 earnings spot to Oil & Gas.

Healthcare profits also flatlined in 2014, sliding $1 million to $3.05 billion as lower prices, inflation and a strong U.S. dollar prevailed over higher productivity, higher volume, and SG&A (selling, general and administrative) cost reductions.

“Organically, Healthcare’s performance was better than the headlines [suggest] when you think about the impacts of foreign currency exchange [rates],” GE Senior Vice President/Chief Financial Officer Jeff Bornstein told analysts during a 2014 earnings conference call in January. “The developed markets feel like they are getting stronger for Healthcare. We’re going to have challenges in Russia and some of the emerging markets. Percentage-wise, the United States is still the biggest single market we have in Healthcare. And we feel much better about the strength there than we have in the past.”

A plethora of new technologies unveiled last year likely contributed to that confidence. Those making their debuts included the Discovery NM/CT 670 Pro hybrid scanner, the Voluson E10 ultrasound machine, the SIGNA Pioneer 3.0 Tesla MRI system, and SPINlab.

Not truly a medical device in itself, the SPINlab is designed for use in research studies for rapid visualization of metabolism at the cellular level. The hyperpolarizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system was developed by Research Circle Technology, an entity spun off in 2011 to advance imaging science.

Previously, a system of SPINlab’s capabilities required a clean room, lots of helium and a significant number of trained staff to operate. But the SPINlab system integrates a dedicated fluid path, quality control, and the ability to hyperpolarize several samples simultaneously. Scientists at Cancer Research U.K.’s Cambridge Research Institute are using the SPINlab system to improve cancer treatment efficacy and guide therapy.

The NM/CT 670 integrates GE’s Optima CT 540 scanner, which includes 50-slice equivalent CT speed; dose management tools such as OptiDose, DoseWatch, and adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR); and a streamlined workflow for most standalone computed tomography (CT) procedures.

The product also features Q.Metrix, an application for measuring and reporting standardized uptake values in the affected organ or lesions. The software allows for quantitative SPECT SUVs with multidimensional organ and lesion characterization. In addition, the NM/CT 670 incorporates GE’s Q.AC image reconstruction algorithm, which aims to provide improved accuracy of SPECT attenuation correction to enable quantitative SPECT measurements even at very low doses.

The system also employs Dosimetry Toolkit, a clinical application that provides tools for organ segmentation, registration, and activity calculations for radioisotope therapy planning.

GE took sonogram imaging to another level with the September release of its Voluson E10 Ultrasound system, a machine that can reveal more about womb life than any medical device before it, according to the NY Daily News. “In the past, you could see a flat, two-dimensional image of the fetal profile,” Barbara Del Prince, a global managing director for ultrasound products, explained to GE Reports. “But today you can watch their movements in 3-D, see a smile or a grimace, glimpse their personality.” 

The Voluson E10 has four times the ultrasound pathway, 10 times the data transfer for more speed and higher resolution, and four times the processing power for more flexibility with advanced applications.

The Voluson E10 not only gives parents a preview of their child’s personality, it also can give doctors important information about the baby’s health. For example, the machine can give an accurate picture of veins and arteries, allowing obstetricians to monitor a child’s brain and heart development from as early as the first trimester. “It may help doctors to make confident diagnoses sooner,” Del Prince said. And while the Voluson E10 is available for use in all patients, Del Prince noted the device particularly is useful in monitoring high-risk patients. “With these patients, physicians are looking for images to answer specific questions and to provide confidence in the diagnosis. Features such as electronic 4-D imaging are a great benefit in these high-risk cases.”

Three months after releasing the Voluson E10, GE debuted its SIGNA Pioneer 3.0 Tesla MRI system at the Radiological Society of North America 2014 Conference in Chicago, Ill. The Pioneer 3.0 system was designed with a new imaging technique called MAGiC, which GE claims may reduce imaging times by up to two-thirds. In addition, the scanner features an enhanced version of GE’s SilentScan technology to mute procedural noise.

MAGiC is a magnetic resonance technique that allows for the acquisition of multiple image contrasts at the same time. In a single scan T1, T2, STIR, TI FLAIR, T2 FLAIR and proton density-weighted images can be acquired, according to product data. Also, image contrast can be changed afterwards, as the device allows users to retrospectively change acquisition parameters such as TR, TE and T1 and see the results.

MAGiC was developed in collaboration with SyntheticMR AB of Linköping, Sweden. It likely was modeled after the company’s SyMRI technology, which uses a mutlislice, multiecho, and multi delay acquisition; from a single scan, SyMRI quantifies absolute T1 relaxation, T2 relaxation and proton density values as well as the amplitude of the local radio frequency B1 field.

“The healthcare industry is 10 percent of global GDP and going through change,” Immelt said in the annual report. “It is an area where we’ve been repositioning our business to succeed in a market that is demanding more technology, more flexibility and more tailored solutions. We are confident that all the innovations we are developing—from portable diagnostic tools to analytical offerings and next-generation imaging—are going to be critical growth drivers for the future.”

More than a half-dozen product approvals helped secure GE’s future growth in healthcare, as U.S. and European regulators approved innovations like the Revolution CT, the Discovery IGS 740 mobile angiography system, the Invenia automated breast ultrasound system, the Vivid T8 cardiovascular ultrasound device, SenoClaire breast imaging (with 3-D tomosythesis) and Q.Clear technology.

The Discovery IGS 740 is designed specifically for hybrid operating rooms. The system rides on floor and can position itself in just about any state, moving to-and-fro the patient as necessary. A spinning laser atop the imaging unit keeps an eye on markers placed along the surgical suite’s ceiling, which provides accurate real-time position information to the device and permits it to return to precisely the same state it previously took. The system features a large 41 inch by 41 inch (104 centimeter by 104 centimeter) detector, bedside controls, and imaging capabilities such as 3-D visualization, live 3-D guidance and needle tracking.

The SenoClaire breast tomosynthesis system is an advanced mammography device that produces cross-sectional images in addition to traditional two-dimensional exposures. The system is an upgrade to the Senographe Essential mammograph, a package that includes both new hardware and software.

SenoClaire uses an iterative reconstruction algorithm to combine data gathered from nine images taken of the breast at different angles into a three-dimensional view. This purportedly provides greater specificity and helps identify lesion margins with greater accuracy. GE claims the system can provide imaging no worse than traditional two-view digital mammography, but at half the dose and with only one compression of the breast.

GE Healthcare also secured its future growth through M&A, purchasing workforce management software provider API Healthcare, operating room management technology developer CHCA Computer Systems, and certain Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. life-science businesses.

The $1.06 billion deal with Thermo Fisher—the third biopharmaceutical acquisition in as many years—includes the firm’s cell-culture business, which consists of media and serums used to manufacture medicines and vaccines. The businesses, which generated a combined estimated revenue of $250 million in 2013, were put up for sale by Thermo Fisher late that year to expedite the European approval of its $13.6 billion acquisition of Life Technologies Corp.

For GE, the Thermo Fisher deal will broaden its life-science offerings and accelerate the development of technologies for cell biology research, cell therapy and the manufacture of biological drugs. Though it is not a drug maker, GE develops technologies and machines that help produce pharmaceuticals.

“It is a business that we have been expanding over the last several years,” former GE Healthcare President/CEO John Dineen told The Wall Street Journal. Dineen was replaced in October by John Flannery, head of business development.

GE’s biomanufacturing business accounts for roughly $1 billion of its healthcare windfall. “It is by far the fastest-growing and a very profitable segment,” Dineen said.

Shortly after announcing its deal with Thermo Fisher Scientific, GE broadcast its intention to buy API Healthcare of Hartford, Wis. GE executives said the purchase fits with the company’s overall strategy to bolster hospital efficiency.

Two and a half months after the API purchase, GE bought Montreal, Canada-based CHCA, whose Opera application provides data in support of surgical procedure management and decision-making. GE claimed the technology could help hospitals reduce wait times, prevent cancellations and increase patient throughput. 

In a press statement, Jan De Witte, president/CEO of GE Healthcare IT, said the CHCA acquisition “complements our current OR [operating room] and perioperative software portfolio and will allow us to deliver a more integrated offering that better connects the workflow throughout the OR, using a mix of software, real-time data and powerful analytics to help drive better outcomes for patients.”

CHCA has developed OR analytics for more than 23 years; GE Healthcare has collaborated with the company to distribute the technology in Europe since 2003.