Customer successes

Background

Throughout the company, GE Capital Real Estate encourages sharing of ideas and best practices with customers and partners. We have long known that the better customers and deal teams understand each other, the more efficiently even large and complicated transactions can be executed.

At GE Capital Real Estate Japan, three important business goals were:

• Share some of GE’s best practices with customers
• Access the most current thinking on the Japanese real estate markets; and,
• Strengthen business relationships

GE Capital Real Estate Solution

With these goals in mind, the team at GE Capital Real Estate Japan organized the GE Capital Real Estate Executive Seminar 2008, an informative and entertaining gathering for customers and partners at a two-day executive seminar. A total of 72 GE Capital Real Estate partners from across Japan and 45 GE employees gathered for the seminar, held in Fukuoka, one of Japan’s oldest yet fastest-growing cities.

GE is well-known for its leadership development. Taeko Toshima, of GE Human Resources, described training. She spoke of how GE employees are evaluated not only on their business performance but also on their personal leadership traits. Toshima-san also talked about setting high goals through "stretch assignments" and the enriched training programs that promote individual growth.

For the most current, high-level thinking on Japan’s real estate market, Professor Yuichiro Kawaguchi of Waseda University Graduate School spoke on the global economy and its effect on real estate investments. As a leading expert in real estate financial engineering, Professor Kawaguchi showed how global economic developments affect Japanese real estate and the yen.

What the Executive Seminar Represents

The executive seminar achieved its goals for strengthening business relationships, with 100 percent of attendees rating the event favorably. Special interest was shown in learning more about GE’s management training system, with the HR presentation raising interest in continuing a future business relationship.

Customer feedback about the seminar included remarks such as, “It was casual but very well organized and designed to make us feel comfortable and have a good time.” “All the GE Capital Real Estate staff members were very friendly and sincere, which made us want to continue to do business with them.

From a business standpoint, the executive seminar surely helped all participants through difficult market conditions. Many participants were involved in deals that helped GE Capital Real Estate Japan disposition 106 properties in 2008, often acting as agents or buyers.