Government Business

During the recent economic downturn, government-funded stimulus projects, especially in the United States, presented GE with significant opportunities to go beyond our current levels of federal, state and local government business. For a company like GE that historically has focused on private sector customers, it is essential that our managers and employees understand what makes our government customers unique.

Government customers must balance their role as a customer for our products and services with their larger responsibility to pursue public policy objectives. This means they may include unique contract requirements such as domestic preferences, socioeconomic requirements and especially stringent requirements for business ethics and compliance programs. GE employees recognize that government customers have a variety of remedies to enforce these unique requirements (both contractual and noncontractual, including civil and criminal sanctions and administrative judgments) that go well beyond remedies available to GE’s commercial customers.

In this challenging environment, GE’s compliance and integrity culture places the company in an excellent position to take advantage of this increase in government work. For example, GE’s Government Business Center of Excellence (GBCOE) features a well-established Government Business Practice Group with members from each GE business. This Practice Group meets monthly and serves as the conduit for government-business related communications both to and from the businesses. The GBCOE conducts monthly training on contemporary government business topics as well as business-specific training. The GBCOE intranet site has a wealth of information on government policies and processes, as well as training materials to support GE businesses that are working with governments. This site receives over 11,000 visits in 2010.

In 2010, the GBCOE and the Policy Compliance Review Board (PCRB) continued their companywide priority focus on government business so that the company is well prepared to meet the unique demands of government business. We have taken the following steps to ensure our readiness:

• Completed a detailed Government Business Resources and Capabilities Assessment across all GE business doing business with U.S. federal, state or local government agencies, based on government and GE policies and GE Government Business Standards.
• Conducted a comprehensive CAS-led audit of all U.S. Government Federal Supply Schedule contracts. These contracts serve all U.S. Government agencies and represent a unique opportunity for GE products and services, but come with particularly complex compliance requirements. The audit was accompanied by a comprehensive training program to ensure employees engaged in the management of these contracts are well equipped to maintain knowledgeable and active oversight.
• Continued to provide training associated with the unique requirements of Recovery Act-funded business with federal, state or local government. More than 800 employees participated in Recovery Act-related training in 2009 and 2010. The GBCOE continued to actively engage with businesses to address compliance requirements and to ensure that public reporting of Recovery Act projects was timely and complete.
• Conducted numerous training sessions in 2010, including regular monthly webinars, training more than 1,100 employees on key government business topics.
• Reviewed stimulus fund contracting activities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as in key countries where stimulus funds represent potential opportunities for GE.
• Developed GE-wide implementation polices for many complex new procurement regulations to ensure a consistently high level of compliance. GBCOE also continued to closely monitor changes and proposed changes to government-procurement related legislation, policies and regulations to assist businesses in understanding new requirements and establishing the appropriate compliance processes in a timely manner.