G.E. = Giant Entrepreneur?

This is the third article in Planning Review featuring G.E.'s experiments with planning. In the first (September 1977), Michael G. Allen, then vice president for corporate strategy, shared the company's techniques in, “Diagramming G.E.'s Planning for What's Watt.” The next article, optimistically titled, “For G.E., Planning Crowned by Success,” written by Steve Cohen, was published exactly five years later. As our current interview with Michael A. Carpenter, vice president, corporate business development and planning, indicates, G.E.'s planning department has undergone trial by fire during the past several years. However, G.E. planners are now playing an intriguing new role in the analysis of strategy, as PR's publisher, Robert J. Allio learns.