"Stretch" assignments are eagerly anticipated by GE employees. My last one, giving global customers e-tools to help them become more self-sufficient, was a great assignment – for our entire business.

 We had to help our customers understand that going online would transform the way they did business with us. In turn, we had to transform the way we worked with them. To do that, we involved everyone in Industrial Systems – customers, sales teams, manufacturing, customer service – in teaching customers. That in itself was a big cultural change for us, but now everyone is connected to the customer globally thanks to e-tools.

 We were successful beyond our wildest dreams. Registered users of our EliteNet™ online tool quadrupled, and Web orders tripled. In the last month of 2001, over half of our global orders were received electronically. That was about 20 percentage points higher than in December 2000.

It has been so energizing to see our entire organization touch the customer every day, and to see so many people on both sides of the relationship recognize the value e-Business can bring. To me, that represents the best that GE has to offer.