Quick, name the outsourcer which comes to market with
- A $ 140 billion services backlog.
- A relentless focus on guaranteed performance and improved outcomes for customers, not just standard SLAs or fixed price contracts
- Deep vertical knowledge in oil and gas, aviation, healthcare and several other complex industries
- Installed base of 250,000 intelligent machines – MS Scanners, Gas Turbines, Jet engines which are generating all kinds of raw data waiting to be sliced and diced
- 40,000 engineers of every stripe
- A Center of Excellence on Advanced Analytics
- an open door to Valley startups to work with it on real customers and opportunities, not just an offer of VC equity money.
Welcome to GE.
Jeff Immelt, CEO in 15 minutes this morning unveiling its concept of “Industrial Internet” summarized the phenomenonal assets he brings to market to deliver what he calls “1% opportunities” : fuel savings for aviation and utilities, productivity improvement for railroads and healthcare, reduction in capex for oil and gas. Just those 1% improvements, GE believes could deliver $ 276 billion in savings (over a 15 year horizon) across those 5 industries.
Later in the day, 4 customers from those industries – Alaska Air, San Diego Gas and Electric, Norfolk Southern and Mt. Sinai Hospital – detailed many of their opportunities - see this post. Given their excitement for their opportunities you wonder if GE is underestimating the opportunity scope at 1%
Four things that really stood out during the presentation and in a few minutes I spent with him later
- GE is not interested in building a million person services army like a Foxconn or an Infosys
- GE is already used to very stringent performance standards from its customers. The way it will make money is by delivering to stretch goals and sharing results with customers, not just by guaranteed multi-year contract with basic SLAs which defines most of today’s outsourcing.
- When asked if GE was doing it because its hardware – scanners, engines etc are at risk of being commoditized like IBM’s hardware was, he said (without meaning to be dismissive of IBM), GE’s stuff is really “hard to do”
- His value proposition to Valley partners is compelling. He said most Valley companies struggle to answer “how will you monetize your business?” GE comes with customers with the monetization opportunity built in.
Welcome to the new world of outsourcing. In my book, 3 years ago, I called him "Proton Jeff". Meeting him today, the moniker sounds even more appropriate.