036_Parker, J. S

              Interview Summary
J. S. Parker with Lou Kraar, FORTUNE May 12, 1977
Q.    As you sit here, what is the corporate strategy guiding you?
A.     To answer that I think I'll have to go back a bit. I have to believe that
everyone's concept of a corporate strategy has to be different.  Everyone comes to it with a different background by virtue of being in other companies or the way they came up through GE. I watched with great interest the way Ralph Cordiner decentralized the Company. I think one has to say this is the thing that made it mobile and flexible. The strategy in those days was  to release itself so it could grow. We grow from within... the notable exception being Utah.
Then in the 60's we had a great emphasis on the international side  some of it, I'll have to say, misguided. We spent time in the 60's acquiring overseas companies...thought we were getting great bargains. Then spent good part of the time in the 70's getting rid of them. But we've learned a lot. In the past couple of years I've been trying to get the international business properly in shape with the rest of the Company. I think we're reaching that.
Now, no company like GE can exist without being of service to its customers. Got to start there. We do about one percent of the GNP. If we can't contribute to an improved standard of living for the country we won't exist. That's number one. If you're going to make this contribution, you have to be not only self-sustaining, but also be able to continue to improve on what you offer in goods and services and hopefully be a greater contributor to the general socio-economic scene. And of course you have to be able to finance yourself. This brings us to point where we talk of profit. And of course this sometimes has a bad connotation. But I think of profit as an element of cost because it's just as important as the cost of materials...you cannot continue to move without this...can't attract capital and pay off share owners without it. The second objective then is an attempt to be sound.
Reg likes to talk of the ""new"" GE. We historically in this Company work around the benign cycle of power. You know of this. Lots of things we are doing now have emanated from it, but have now broken out. I feel things like materials are going to be far more important in the overall matrix of the Company. Another example: jet engines. I'm close to that. Here again, we've developed something very important outside the cycle. We also for the first time in this decade have been divesting ourselves.  Very important in marshalling our resources as best as possible.