Thread regarding General Electric Co. layoffs

"on LinkedIn"

He's not advertising GRC. He's advertising himself.

You know times are bad when the CTO is out there on LinkedIn peddling our microscope’s capabilities. This situation is partly his own doing. Subsidizing rates using assessed and now that assessed is on the decline, peddling capabilities on the internet in order to self sustain? Crazy fantasy

@5qvb GE gave up on its entire future, not just GRC. The selloff of the remaining pieces is now guaranteed.

Either find a way out or go down with the ship.

Okay so you think GRC is ineffective because the business is short sighted and greedy. Whatever. Take that as a fact and move on. Let failure be an orphan.

“Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”

@4dwa Agree, disagree... who cares. Stop the childish games. Once GRC publicly goes down (message to investors: GE gave up on its future), there will be a hight chance GE stock tumbles and whatever business you are in, you will be sold out soon afterwards...

"I don't agree that a research lab is better if it is run by the businesses, because that is part of the current problem."

So you agree that GRC is ineffective. Good. We're half way there. Cogitate on this, "There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan."

AL was the CFO.

AL was pushed out by VA. V's old buddy from Power is the new CFO.

This is just a minor part of the ongoing purge of the upper echelons of a research organization now led by non- researchers.

AL?

In the meantime, AL bailed out. He was perhaps the most informed one about the GRC's chances of surviving the future storm, which undoubtedly is coming. A sign of things to come?

In the meantime, AL bailed out. He was perhaps the most informed one about the GRC's chances of surviving the future storm, which undoubtedly is coming. A sign of things to come?

3tmj states, "Would GRC be more effective if the businesses ran it? Sure a lot". I don't agree that a research lab is better if it is run by the businesses, because that is part of the current problem.

The reality at GRC for many years is that the businesses do essentially control it, first through contract funding of short term activities that many times should have been done in the business and were not research-like in character, and secondly through control of the assessed funding by means of CEO projects that had to be blessed by the businesses to get funded to begin with. There was very little independent research funding available and as a result, very little research was actually done - most of the work was of an advanced development or even short-term development character. My group was very tightly tied to the businesses - there was no playing in a sandbox or pursuing things that didn't have the potential to directly impact a product. Much of the frustration was due to very conservative business leaders who were reluctant to implement good ideas from GRC (unless or until GE's competitors got there first!).

The benefit of an independent research organization to a company like GE is its ability to attract a different type of talent than the businesses can attract. Not better, but different in type of training, technical interests, etc. Ideally somewhere in the middle ground between a university and a business. GRC worked best in a complementary mode to the businesses, not competing with the design groups there or duplicating their efforts, but rather taking a more long term outlook and providing a complimentary skill set. GRC was (at one time) a storehouse of extensive technical depth and expertise that helped pitch in to resolve critical company problems.

"Anyone cared to give credit to GRC in the meantime???"

Some credit? Sure. Some. It's not like the whole GRC budget has been 100% wasted forever. No one is saying that.

Would GRC be more effective if the businesses ran it? Sure. A lot.

GRC should not be picking its own targets. GRC management should not be rating itself.

@ULrG9kB-1dgd - are you going to give credit to the business units that also contributed to the implementation of composites?

1) GRC didn't develop composites in a vacuum

2) Nor did GRC integrate composites into an engine by without help from any business units.

3) Composites weren't the only thing that kept Aviation ahead of the competition.

4) Aviation is absolutely not keeping the entire company alive. All of the Industrials were profitable, check the second quarter earnings presentation. The only negative profits were from Capital and Corporate.

But by your post, GRC alone is responsible for keeping the entire company alive? I guess you need a Ph.D. to find the "I" in "Team".

@2mwj I think you are correct in both your points. Regarding 2), no one would care how many people are at GRC or how much they are paid if 1) was not an issue. GRC has not been effective enough for whatever reason.

We can be sure that "outsourcing assignments" are NOT the answer and can only distract.

@2evz....The problems of GRC stem from 2 sources:

1) Management at both GRC and Corporate have allowed GRC labs and researchers to operate independently from the businesses, developing an elitist, non-inclusive culture. For GRC to 'LEAD' tech roadmaps when they have had zero connection to our customers and the money making aspects of industry has been silently viewed as preposterous by the Tier 1s. This issue is long term and is only now starting to get better.

2) GRC is top heavy in terms of both salaries and leadership level overhead. I'll bet the engineers/scientists/techs at the competitors for the characterization lab make at most 75% of what GRC pays, and with many fewer layers of E-bands. VA &Co have done very little to control spending, salary inflation or management bloat.

The tension and antipathy projected towards GRC sadden me.

Why do so many point a finger at at a place within the company that actually tries to generate the future? The cost is $200M (assessed) in 2018, $150M in 2019 and $100M in 2020. A wide variety of research programs can be funded with such funding.

The vast majority of GRC employees are not in for the money (at least I am not). We are in to work on interesting projects, to push the boundaries, and to help the company (please permutate per your preferences). PhD != a lot of dough (CF 95%). MBA == a lot of dough (CF 95%). Where do you find MBAs? Not at GRC...

It is easy to discard highly capable, long-term thinking researchers- it takes two weeks to destroy a team. Yet it takes years to form a well functioning team and technologies useful to the receiving business.

GRC has gotten much leaner over the past two years. The process has been painful and the final outcome is uncertain. However, GE still wants its GRC, in whichever form. I have seen a major shift in our projects - much less research, much more close-to-NPI development.

GRC is changing as well, to be better aligned with the vision of the company. The great peril persists, though, and it is the lack of solid vision and long-term thinking (two quarters out) at the highest echelons.

@rft. Define 'sustainable research.' One example, GRC Composite research, which was nowhere near profitable/sustainable in the near term, and took almost a decade before it became accepted by the Business, but ultimately allowed GE Aviation to stay ahead of competition. And now, Aviation is keeping the entire company alive. Anyone cared to give credit to GRC in the meantime??? Only hate posts at this board is all I see tbh.

GE leadership CAN'T take action soon without letting Wall Street know that GE is not what we say we are.

I mean seriously, look at these pro GRC posts. Would an over worked PhD from a healthy, in demand organization say, "GRC generates quite a bit of IP that the businesses are either (1) not ready for or (2) unwilling to go forward with "? No! Of course not. What is incredible is that the poster is admitting that the rest of GE doesn't consider GRC to be innovating in a way that the business is ready for. He's not blaming GRC. He's blaming the company. Sure it's a self serving explanation but it should set off alarm bells that such an explanation is accepted in the GRC hallways. He might as well have said, "Corporate should force the rest of GE to field GRC's wonderful IP..." That's what makes sense to him. Bizarre.

Anyway, don't let Wall Street know.

GRC's overcharged expensive labor is simply not sustainable without support from GE business units, which are not in good shape (except GEA). GRC is a BIG spending unit, not revenue generating one and GE leadership should take actions soon.

I'm sorry but there is no way GRC can be competitive in much of this field. With an INTERNAL charge rate of $300/hr ++, they are already way beyond what places like Adirondack Environmental, Impact, RJ Lee, etc will charge. It's like getting your Ford's oil changed at a mercedes dealership, sure they'll do it for you but you would be nuts to pay that price!

I'm surprised that GRC has the time to do this. Since they can offer the GE businesses R&D with a success rate up to 10% for technology that will be marketable in only a decade or two (source: @UEvIhvH-5zpv) you'd think the business units would be flooding GRC with more funding than they know what to do with!

The 5 stages of grief and loss are:

1. Denial and isolation;

2. Anger;

3. Bargaining; <- You are here

4. Depression;

5. Acceptance.

It has nothing to do with GRC being cash strapped and has more to do with business opportunity and establishing its own revenue. You probably don’t know but that analytical group has capabilities that are actually quite in demand and smaller companies do frequently send out their analytic samples, because they can’t themselves maintain the internal capabilities. I mean ask people from that group- it didn’t take them long to get customer samples even before that formal announcement was ever made.

But again- if GRC is looking to become more independent than why wouldn’t they look to market their viable skills like analytics (service) and research (IP). GRC generates quite a bit of IP that the businesses are either (1) not ready for or (2) unwilling to go forward with a new product line for, all of that can be licensed out for cash into the GRC as where previously that cash went to the particular business that happened to pay the maintenance fee on the patent. Moreover, before the argument shifts to stupidity like the “research is garbage” consider that most of the IP was shelved by the businesses but efforts to license was always fought back by the same business that claimed to not want it. The common argument being that they were indeed interested in it, but just not yet.

It’s hardly bleak it’s actually a pretty good tactic. Commercial research is a real industry- look at the CNSE down in Albany, much of that is commercial research for customers across a variety of industries (some sell tools yes, others sell the IP).

Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t do this sooner.

Wrong link:

https://www.geglobalresearch.com/characterization/