Business Week reports that John Rice, who will head General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) new Technology Infrastructure unit and is a corporate Vice Chairman, is sounding very CEO-like in his description of GE's recent reorganization -- which I discussed here.

Rice offered a more cogent explanation of the reorganization than what I have read so far. The key points:

• Transparency - BusinessWeek quotes Rice as saying, "It's an easier way for investors to view us and understand what we do." I don't agree with him because it will make it more difficult for investors to compare current performance with previous years' results for at least a year. That's because it will be difficult to compare four units to the previous six.
• Common sales force - Rice also suggested that the reorganization will streamline the sales of some products. For example, the new GE Energy Infrastructure, which includes energy, oil and gas, makes products that are frequently sold together. This makes sense to me -- as long as GE trains and motivates its sales force to sell them together.

Continue reading Will John Rice take over GE from Jeff Immelt?

Will John Rice take over GE from Jeff Immelt? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.