Crisis Management: The BP 2010 deep water oil spill - Assignment Example

Crisis Management: The BP deep water oil spill By definition, crisis management is the practice of how an organization handles a significant event that threatens its very existence (Reid, 3). With the many environmental and human challenges faced in today’s business environment thanks to the advance in technology and other external risk factors, organizations continually work towards optimal preparedness because negative information travels fast in present times. The 2010 BP oil spill is an event that still holds the record as one of the largest disasters in the petroleum industry having lasted for 87 days to contain.

Given that BP was prior to this crisis, held in high regard and believed to be more than prepared for disasters of this magnitude, stakeholders were entirely surprised as they watched crude oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico for close t three months (Juhasz, 36). The following is a summary of steps that BP should have taken prior to and during the spillage to better manage this crisis: Build a culture of responsiveness to safety issues with precise plans and financial reserves for such occurrence as was the case in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to Reid, 61, no single organization, however successful, can manage a crisis of any magnitude if responsiveness is not embedded in their culture. BP was believed to be responsive, but this crisis exposed major flaws in their safety preparedness as the world watched with horror, oil flowing from their well for 87 days. Building an organizational culture of responsive is a process that should be continually appraised in readiness for any occurrence. BP did not perform very well in this area.

More focus on environmental impact assessment as a management and decision - making tool: It emerged from this spill, that constant environmental impact assessment was not a significant part of BP’s management decision process. At the initial stage of the crisis, clear statistics of the possible harm was not available. Extremely conservative evaluation of the damage was released by BP when to inexperienced external stakeholders, the damage was already too expensive (Reid, 73) Information management: According to Reid, flow of information at the beginning of the crisis was poorly managed with conflicting analysis of the damage coming from BP’s management.

Even though the company later constituted a proper information dissemination centre, the damage had already been done and were it not for the extended period of the crisis, initial mishaps would have stood out to the detriment of BP. Even with previous post-crisis recommendations from experts, BP as an organization can only avoid another disaster if it reviewed its organizational culture and located the place of safety within its larger operational framework. With a non-responsive culture, even the best technology and skill set among employees cannot prevent or properly manage a crisis in the event of such an occurrence.

The fundamental lesson from the Gulf of Mexico disaster to BP and other organizations within the petroleum industry is that; making responsiveness and preparedness part of the daily operational procedures makes all the difference when a crisis strikes. Works Cited Reid, Janine L. Crisis Management: Planning and Media Relations for the Design and Construction Industry. New York: Wiley, 2000. Print. Juhasz, Antonia. Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2011. Print.