Introduction
General Electric (GE) is a recognized brand in providing high-end technological equipment, including medical equipment for the healthcare sector. However, its overall business is also distributed across other major fields, including gas, oil, energy, aviation, and power. For GE, its technology and quality of services provided to its consumers are vital in strengthening its market in India, enabling it to remain competitive before other businesses offer the same products.
Despite business success in India, the environment has been faced with numerous challenges ranging from economic practices, bad regulations, and competition. In contrast, an efficient organizational structure, skilled human resources, and superior technology have propelled its excellent performance. In India, the number of challenges has continued developing, and there are several experiences in the healthcare sector. Therefore, this paper will provide a comprehensive PESTEL analysis of the company by evaluating factors that hinder and assist in expanding its services in India and across the globe.
Political Factors
In every business, political factors play a major role in determining the success and progress of any company. In different regions of the world, specifically, India, legal context and government bodies are always aggressive about securing the inland firms. Moreover, political aspects in India have facilitated the expansion of the GE business market-creating a suitable economic environment (Aithal, 2017). Political stability has enabled stable economic growth hence enabling favorable conditions that have helped the innovation and progress of the business. In addition, the distribution and supply chains of the company located not only in India but across the world are adversely influenced by the stability of political characteristics in the specified country.
When the political stability is on a higher notch, the company reports a friendly and stable business surrounding market development. However, when the country is faced with political confusion, GE reports an interference in the rate at which investors and partners contribute to their performance (Kahiya, 2020). Currently, General Electrics is experiencing different political tensions in the different branches across the globe. The growth of instability and strains in the political situation can influence the limit of opportunities that facilitated the company’s development.
Corruption and bureaucracy also generate a negative impact on the business environment. When GE conducts its operations in countries with high cases of corruption and poor laws implementation it creates challenges in predicting the business environment because it threatens the public’s trust in the establishment. Corruption can also impact the business’s operations, especially when they need to acquire specific tenders, licenses, genuine deals, and solve some complaints (Kahiya, 2020). Therefore, as a global company, GE tries to limit its operations with stakeholders known for engaging in corrupt systems that may threaten the organization’s stability. Moreover, countries with governance systems that are well developed with political settings tend to give more comfort to GE to conduct their business without tampering with their credibility.
Economic Factors
It is significant for GE to understand India’s economic aspects such as saving rates, inflation, labor market conditions, interest rate, and exchange rate. The need to understand the economic environment is attributed to the fact that it can enable the company to estimate its growth trajectory from the organization’s perspective and the industry. One of the economic factors that are influencing GE is the stage of its current business cycle. For instance, the economic development of India has impacted GE since it has directly influenced its economic development. India is one of the growing economies that offers a wide range of opportunities to companies like GE through economies of scale. Since GE is in its growth stage, it can capitalize on these opportunities as they emerge (Aithal, 2017).
The advantage for GE being in the current stage is attributed to the fact that other companies that are already in the matured stage of the business cycle can find it difficult to penetrate new markets and make use of these economies of scale due to market saturation. Another important factor influencing the current performance of GE is the developed infrastructure within the host country where it has its operations. Since India has spent a lot on its core infrastructure, companies like GE can increase their growth potential since they can capitalize on a well-developed business environment.
Another economic factor that impacts the operation of GE is the inflation, interest, exchange, and employment rates of the country. All these rates are determined by the GDP growth of the country, which may influence the ability of the company to pursue long-term growth strategies. For instance, when a country has high GDP, it illustrates the ability of consumers to spend more on products offered by companies like GE (Bahoo, Alon, and Paltrinieri, 2020).
Furthermore, elements like high unemployment rates also impact the GDP of the country. However, where the level of employment is high, it illustrates that a country has huge surplus labor, which a company can capitalize on to minimize its operational costs.
Another economic factor that impacts the operations of GE is the current labor market conditions. Since demand and supply of the labor market influence the wage rates demanded by employees, GE must study and determine how they can leverage the current labor market conditions to their advantage. The analysis of these labor market conditions will enable the company to determine which wage rates they will need to attract highly skilled employees to the organization. Furthermore, if the company operates in a flexible labor market, it can negotiate wages with its employees, enabling them to minimize their overall operational costs (Buckley, Enderwick, and Cross, 2018).
However, if GE operates in a rigid labor market influenced by the labor movements and other employee unions, it may disable them from controlling their wage costs. Nevertheless, regardless of what type of labor market conditions the firm operates in, the firm should be ready to attract skilled human capital, especially when there is a shortage.
Being an international firm, GE is also influenced by the efficiency of the financial markets. For instance, in implementing its global expansion strategies, GE may have to determine where the current financial market’s efficiency will support (Jaffrelot, Kohli, and Murali, 2019). A highly efficient financial market will enable the company to enter new markets since its liquidity position will be strengthened. As a result, the company will be able to raise its capital at fair prices, enabling it to resume operations faster.
Social Factors
The importance of social factors in conducting a PESTEL analysis is based on the fact that most organizational cultures are influenced by societal norms, trends, and values. Therefore, there is a need for a company to understand these trends since it can enable them to develop marketing strategies that are consistent with consumer patterns and beliefs. One of the social factors that have impacted the operations of GE is the demographic patterns of India. Some of these patterns include socio-economic variables, migration, and the aging population, which are essential in organizing businesses (Singh and Jaiswal, 2018).
Learning the demographic features can aid the establishment in selecting the correct market segment that possesses a high potential for development. The marketing and business approaches are also determined by migration since it impacts the industry’s capacity to introduce global managers to India.
Furthermore, culture is also a vital factor for any international company to consider. Different societies in India have different values and norms that play a significant role in influencing customers’ behavior. Therefore, GE should implement local groups and develop local corporations to better comprehend societal norms and attitudes to adapt the strategies of enhanced marketing in alignment with the specified cultural situation. The company may also decide to observe the social categories in the country and decide to offer premium services and products to a high-end market that might be small hence adopting the niche promotion tactics. Similarly, segmenting the marketing according to social groups might be unsuccessful, especially where the stratification is low.
Nevertheless, the patterns of spending by customers are impacted by the buying power of the currency. Forecasting and studying the client’s purchasing power grounded on the practical economic pointers is vital in analyzing the interest of consumers and their patterns of spending. Therefore, GE should invest more time to comprehend the social trends and consumption motivations that define the behavior of their buyer’s patterns.
Technological Factors
This is the fourth aspect of the PESTEL analysis. The swift advancement and diffusion in technology across India have increased the necessity of considering technological aspects during strategic decision-making procedures. Moreover, a comprehensive examination of the technology surrounding can help GE adopt the current trends to attain specific advantages in conducting business in India, such as enhancing operational efficiency, boosting innovation procedures, and increasing product profitability.
Besides, the growth of communication and information technologies has facilitated enhanced marketing skills to improve collaboration with clients. GE can control the chances provided by social media platforms to enhance the performance of the business through marketing. The trends in the technology industry can be utilized to initiate an inventive social media promotion for evolving online brand communities. In addition, the company should also consider the trending technological events to remain relevant and compete with other businesses that offer the same products and services (Saeed, 2019). For instance, the establishment should pay more attention to analyzing the 5G network system and deciding on its capability to deliver positive business results through expanded access, increased speed, and enhanced user experience.
Such innovation in the technology field can facilitate important changes in the company and reset the regulations of achievements, especially for major players in the market. Moreover, considering the maturity and growth level of technology in the healthcare sector is also important. Joining in markets where the advancement of technology has not attained maturity means GE can upsurge its share in the market by aiming at emerging technological modernizations.
Environmental Factors
The developing environmental awareness and modified climate conditions have facilitated environmental factors to be included in the PESTEL analysis. The regulations, laws, and standards of the environment differ across various markets (Derudder and Witlox, 2016). The international existence of GE needs the company to consider the differences to evade unwanted situations carefully. The developing environmental pollution, joined with the enhancement of technology, has forced businesses to implement advanced recycling and waste management practices.
With India’s population at 1.3 billion, recycling waste products has become a norm by adopting compelling waste management performances. Thus, it will help GE place strict customs that will shield their urban regions (Saeed, 2019.). GE can take the opportunity of the growing necessity to adopt eco-friendly products and implement green services and products in their services to win the confidence and trust of their shareholders to purchase the items. The adoption of these eco-friendly products has initiated the implementation of regulatory departments across the globe to ensure strict compliance with its regulations hence altering the priorities of innovative products. Therefore, it requires GE to introduce products that are eco-friendly over the usual value proposals in the market.
Legal Factors
This is the last aspect of the PESTEL analysis. GE cannot join the Indian market without understanding the detailed regulatory structure and its consumers’ legal environment. They need to understand this aspect to avoid getting themselves into serious legal consequences that may lead to financial losses. For example, GE must adhere to the regulations that guard the health and safety of employees in India according to the country’s labor laws.
Providing a conducive and safe environment for employees is a moral and ethical obligation for the company hence the need to study such laws when implementing the human resource department carefully. Lawsuits aligned with discrimination against employees tend to cause great harm to the company’s reputation to the point of losing potential clients.
Moreover, data protection is also an important concern since most customers value their security and privacy, especially when they notice it can be leaked to the public. GE needs to constitute regulations and strategies that will ensure customers’ data are protected. Besides, some laws determine the pricing and standards of commodities in the market to protect clients from fraudulent activities (Buckley, Enderwick, and Cross, 2018). Therefore, GE must consider all these aspects to ensure they comply with the accurate laws that protect customers in India. Lastly, there are intellectual property rules that are customized to the organization’s values and patent ideas. The failure to safeguard this law may decline the positioning of GE against other competitors in the marketing environment.
Recommendations
This PESTEL model of GE demonstrates varying aspects and business factors that provide opportunities for developing GE’s company in India, especially in the healthcare sector. However, some aspects threaten the performance of the business, especially the political element, which introduces challenges over time depending on the country’s situation. Considering the company is a global establishment, it has all the opportunities it needs to exploit to reduce the risks portrayed by the different threats.
For instance, GE can develop innovative performances or acquire smaller firms to address the political challenges affecting their products’ growth and design. The approach will significantly improve the organization’s structure by ensuring an innovative strategy for matching the various market trends. Besides, maximizing the strategies identified in the PESTEL analysis could enhance the operation of the business amid the threats and changes that emerge to be more challenging.
Conclusion
In summary, the PESTEL analysis is a powerful tool for businesses since it entails a comprehensive macro-environmental model that determines any business’s surroundings. Therefore, global businesses such as GE can use an analysis that is detailed by conducting further research as they up their business or enhance the existing businesses in the country and other regions. Moreover, the adoption of this model is essential to providing GE company with a better focus on what is needed for them in a foreign country to achieve a successful and profitable business without engaging in unethical practices such as corruption.
References
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Buckley, P.J. Enderwick, P. and Cross, AR (eds.) (2018) International business. Oxford University Press.
Derudder, B. and Witlox, F. (2016) International business travel in the global economy. Routledge.
Jaffrelot, C. Kohli, A. and Murali, K. (eds.) (2019) Business and politics in India. Modern South Asia.
Kahiya, E.T. (2020) ‘Context in international business: entrepreneurial internationalization from a distant small open economy’, International Business Review, 29(1), p.101621. Web.
Saeed, A. (2019) ‘The effects of international business law on economy: an analysis based on the international business investment. PONTE International Scientific Research Journal, 75(8). Web.
Singh, A. and Jaiswal, K.K. (2018) ‘Ease of doing business in India: a vision of make in India’. Economic Affairs, 63(1), pp.129-135. Web.