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To Our Customers, Share Owners and Employees 2000 was a memorable year for GE: It was a year of record-breaking business performance; a year that saw the proposal to acquire and integrate the businesses of Honeywell; and a year that began the transition to a new leadership team.
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We write this in a year of transition to a new team, and we would like to use this occasion to reflect on what GE is today: why it works, the values and beliefs it is built upon and how they will serve to take us to the even better days that we know lie ahead for our Company. First, and most importantly, GE is a growth company, creating, in 2000 alone, the equivalent of an $18 billion, multi-business "company" with earnings of $2 billion. In 2000 the Company not only posted its highest revenues ever, but grew them at one of the highest rates in its history. Second, through the rigorous pursuit of four big Company-wide initiativesGlobalization, Services, Six Sigma Quality and Digitizationwe've changed not only where we work and what we sell, but how we work, think and touch our customers. Globalization has transformed a heavily U.S.-based Company to one whose revenues are now 40% non-U.S. Even more importantly, it has changed us into a Company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital: the world's best talent and greatest ideas. A Services focus has changed GE from a Company that in 1980 derived 85% of its revenues from the sale of products to one that today is based 70% on the sale of services. This extends our market potential and our ability to bring value to our customers. Six Sigma has turned the Company's focus from inside to outside, changed the way we think and train our future leaders and moved us toward becoming a truly customer-focused organization. As we said in our 1999 letter, Digitization is transforming everything we do, energizing every corner of the Company and making us faster, leaner and smarter even as we become bigger. In 2000, these words began to turn into numbers, as we sold over $7 billion of goods and services over the net and conducted over $6 billion in online auctions. Digitization efforts across the Company will generate over $1.5 billion in operating margin improvements in 2001. |
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