GE takes lead position for second consecutive year
Dubai, UAE; March 2007: General Electric (GE), the US$ 163 billion, diversified technology, media and financial services company, has been named the World’s Most Admired Company in a survey by Fortune magazine. The company takes the lead position in the list for the second consecutive year and earns its place for the seventh time in 25 years of the survey.
Announcing the ranking, Fortune magazine observed: “For sheer adaptability over time, GE is hard to beat. Of the 12 companies Charles Dow chose to make up his original Dow Jones industrial average in 1896, GE is the only one still in the index.”
The magazine also feted GE for its ecomagination initiative noting that the campaign is aimed at supercharging revenues while doubling GE’s $700 million R&D budget to come up with solar-energy hybrid locomotives, lower-emission aircraft engines, more efficient lighting, and ever more sophisticated water-purification systems. “Evidently conservation begins at home: GE cut its own energy bills by about $70 million last year, partly by installing new lighting in more than 100 of its plants, and reduced its greenhouse-gas emissions by about 150,000 tons.”
“To be adjudged as the World’s Most Admired Company is a rare honour and we are winning this lead position for the second consecutive year,” said Nabil Habayeb, President and CEO, Middle East & Africa. “The Most Admired list is a definitive report on corporate reputation as it takes into account the personal viewpoint of the world’s top executives, directors and analysts.”
Hay Group, which has conducted the research for the World’s Most Admired Companies list since 1997, surveyed a total of 616 companies in 68 industries over the fourth quarter of 2006 for the list.
The global conglomerate has strengthened its Middle East presence recently through several key initiatives including the opening of its new headquarters in Dubai. GE’s Middle East and Africa operations amounted to US$5.5 billion in revenue in 2006, a growth of 32 per cent from US$4.2 billion in 2005.
GE has several firsts to its credit including setting up the first corporate R&D lab in 1900; creating the ‘blue books’ of guidance for GE manages in the 1950s; adapting strategic planning in the 1960s; and shaping concepts such as leadership development, Work Out and Six Sigma in the last few decades.
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