MGT ASSIGNMENT PART ONE - Essay Example

An obvious example of a factor that could influence the strategic planning that BP might engage in would be changes within the governmental structureor environmental legislation of Niger. Whereas the BP firm makes a great deal of money drilling and extracting oil within this region, any changes to the governmental or environmental structure that currently exists within Niger would ultimately harm the ability that BP would have to continue to extract large amount of oil from this region; thereby hurting profitability.

Although Niger is of course merely one example, there exists many such examples around the globe whereby strategic planning can seek to anticipate and ameliorate many of the challenges to profitability and change that exist within the current business environment.Furthermore, an evidence of tactical planning can be seen in the way in which BP has sought to further improve upon its safety performance in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico. Although BP was only partly responsible for the Macando Blow Out, the fact of the matter was that the incident was able to focus a high degree of oversight and introspection into the means whereby wells were drilled, caps were placed, and safety procedures were followed within the industry.

More than being the greatest oil spill in history, the Macando Blow Out has provided BP with an exceptional opportunity to implement tactical planning on all of its oil drilling operations as a means of ensuring such an eventuality does not again occur. Finally, for the aspect of contingency planning that BP engages in, one can understand such a determinant also through the lens of the Macando Blow Out. What was evidenced at the time that the explosions and subsequent leak was first evidenced was the fact that BP was wholly and completely unprepared for dealing with a situation such as this; both on the tactical front as well as upon the contingency planning front.

Rather than integrating a belief or understanding with the shareholders within the arena of public opinion that the firm was in control and was capable of dealing with the situation, what unfolded for the world to see was a firm that seemed to be muddling its way through the greatest oil spill in recorded human history. This destroyed consumer confidence and has left a very biased taste within the minds of shareholders that has yet to be erased. Although the majority of the damage from Deepwater horizon has since dissipated, the pervasive memory of how the firm dealt with the situation has remained (Danese, 2011).

As a function of this, BP has been faced with the sheer and absolutely importance of maintaining contingency plans for each and every drilling operation to include the means whereby they will integrate with certain disasters and seek to confront negative public opinion in a much more efficient manner. Although no level of planning could have saved the firm from negative perception, the extent to which this was curried during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was so extreme that BP has since learned the painful lesson of the value that appropriate contingency planning might have provided.

ReferenceDanese, P. (2011). Towards a contingency theory of collaborative planning initiatives in supply networks. International Journal Of Production Research, 49(4), 1081-1103. doi:10.1080/00207540903555510