What Was Bps Strategy Prior To The Accident Business Essay

What Was Bps Strategy Prior To The Accident Business Essay Deepwater Horizon was an offshore oil-rig located in the Gulf-of- Mexico, owned by Transocean, leased by BP and deployed by Hyundai. 20th April 2010, during the drilling, a tear in the riser-pipe caused an uncontrollable leakage of petroleum, claiming 11 lives, injuring 17 others. The fire fed by the oilfield continued for next 36 hours causing the rig sunk ultimately. Disagreement between different stakeholders caused a delay in taking measures to restrict the oil-leakage. This leakage from the oil-field could only be stopped after 87 days, resulting approx 60,000 barrels/day of oil-leakage into the gulf-of-Mexico causing irreparable damage to marine and coastal ecosystem. Beaches remain closed, tourism and related business suffered, seafood was contaminated and oil killed marine-life across the US-coast. BP on Nov-12 agreed to plead guilty to 14 criminal acts related to this event and to pay $4.5 billion. The potential fine for the spill under the act is $1,100 to $4,300 a barrel s pilled, (NY Times, 2013). This incident also triggered government, MNCs and environmental agencies to agree upon and device stringent measures on improving the safety of offshore oil-rigs, safeguarding the environment, enhancing the post-disaster measures (OCS report, 2011).this incident damaged the strong portfolio value of BP apart from causing it immense financial loss. Preparedness is of utmost important, a process should be devised and actively in-place to tackle such disasters, in such an environment, strategies originate in formal plans (Mintzberg and Waters, 1995) : precise intentions exist [both government and MNCs] , formulated and articulated by central leadership [government], backed up by formal controls to ensure complete adherence [by MNCs], to increase preparedness for disasters in an controllable or predictable manner- mostly this approach converges towards planned-approach. Despite of BPs commitment towards maintaining readiness to respond on larger-scale, to minim ize damaging-effect and facilitate mitigation activities- the magnitude of the deepwater incident was enormous in magnitude and unprecedented which caught BP in its mitigating strategy-formulation. Environmental and social impact assessment is an inherent part of BP strategy (BP, 2013) which analyses the potential risk to environment and on human in the neighborhood of such establishments, though the state-of-art technologies BP failed to assess the risk of this oil-rig. BP lacked in the collaboration with all stakeholders in addressing this disaster. The traditional-way of aerial and satellite imagery in estimating the actual deep-underwater situation failed (Jernelo ¨v, 2010). Another failure of BP was to manage the media in restricting the exaggerated and conflicting facts spread across worldwide thus damaging BPs strong portfolio-value. Strategy Literature Review We can relate the concept of strategic space (Fiegenbaum Thomas, 1990) with the Deepwater-horizon disaster; we would map as the first-step the characteristics of the business environment, termed as strategic space. Three dimensions, a) the levels of organizational strategy (e.g. US government and BP-corporate), b) the strategic decisions making process (e.g. scope, resource deployment), and c) the time period which defines the broad characteristics of the strategic space. First firms need to invest on a well-designed, technically-sound, and precise research, placed within a comprehensive framework covering initially the stable aspects of group behavior, then moves progressively to theory development and testing of dynamic behavior (Fiegenbaum Thomas, 1990). MNCs and government need to join hand to invest on the study of this incident to identify the root-cause of this failure and then agree to devise enhanced preventive measures for such future incidents. It is clear that traditional countermeasures failed, which necessitates for a new approach of risk-management. In the aftermath of this, US govt is taking significant measures to improve regulatory oversight on offshore drilling (OCS report, 2011). We can see competition as a dynamic process in which firms continually take actions to outperform each other (Rindova et al, 2010), once one competitor faces such disaster the other firm eagerly willing to take the advantage of the situation by airing neg ative campaign and aggressive advertisement [e.g. as Shell did]. During such disasters we can argue that a firms decisions as a series of competitive actions provides audience with necessary cues in framing impression about it, as well as comparing it to other players in the same market. Firms competitive actions thus act as a dynamic mechanism for firm specific reduction of ambiguity. Emergence period [of such disaster] on which we focus is relatively short and creates a dynamic environment in which firms [BP] need to make rapid changes in their strategies responding to the changing need of the ground-situation, Rindova et al (ibid). Deepwater-horizon or such incidents are huge in magnitude and poses significant capability to cause damage we need to introduce -out-of-the-box thinking and improvisation/innovation to devise strategies to fight with such situation the dynamic nature of such incidents requires prompt action taking capability [in the terms of financial, technologica l resource]. Insurance [and reinsurance] firms also come under scope during such incidents their risk evaluation process need to be enhanced and routine check-up should be stringent. Product diversification and size dimensions are two such aspects that needs close inspection while determining the value of such huge installations Fiegenbaum Thomas (ibid). Having a good strategy and right execution of the same is essential for a good-management (Thompson et al, 2012) all stakeholders need to have a well-defined strategy in-place to manage such disasters and absolute adherence is needed when calamities occur. The strategy need to be flexible enough to adept itself responding to the actual ground-situation [feedback loop]. A deliberately emergent approach might be useful Mintzberg Waters (ibid). MNCs need to be made responsible to adjust themselves during the unexpectedly tough business-environment by undertaking strategic defense and approaches that enables them to overcome the adversity Thompso n et al, (ibid). But at the same time government also cant escape its responsibilities. Off course a good strategy is essential to obtain and sustain market-position strong enough so that the firm is capable to yield profitable financial performance despite unforeseen events/external factors [e.g. disaster, natural calamity or potential competition]. A review on BP Strategy What was BPs strategy prior to the accident? BP being a trusted company adheres to a higher set of standards in everyday work (BP, 2011). Business doesnt occur in vacuum, the place and time is important (Parry et al, 2007)- stakeholder theory (Donaldson and Preston, 1995) emphasizes on considering all stakeholders [in the environment in which firm operates not only the shareholders interest] strategy-making. Several stakeholders and their competitive interest are associated with such huge installations. BP needs to respect this and maintain balance among all such groups while making their strategy. BP seemed to follow a deliberate approach until this event. BP states its objective as create value for shareholders (BP, 2011) it being a global MNC needs to be responsible towards environment and people in the region it operates. Safety remained top-priority for BP, when disaster happens BP needs to be flexible enough to response to the situation and devise measures to control the aftermath- we observed that they spent three days in discussing the approach. Constructive dialogue with all stakeholders and prompt action in such cases is needed. Government authorities, local-people, environmental-organizations, employee and shareholders, opinions from all should be considered during formulating the strategy which lacked in the case. This incident also shows that neither government nor BP was prepared to sustain such disaster this shows an obvious lack from BPs part in conducting appropriate risk assessment (OCS report, 2011). Experts conclude that this disaster could have been avoided, preparedness and prompt-action is pivotal in managing s uch disaster. Analysis of BP actions in light of the strategic frameworks Resource based view VRIO resources for BP is its strong portfolio value [inimitable and rare], its technical expertise [valuable and rare], financial and organisational strength [valuable]. BP has lost two of its VRIO resources, resulting from this incident; its brand-value and financial-strength [to pay the huge fine]. BP lacked the technical-expertise to avoid the incident and then failed to restrict the leakage it lost its valuable and rare resources [infrastructure, human life]. The myth of inimitable technical expertise of BP and its strong portfolio value were shattered by the incident. It is a huge loss for a firm. Approach based view BP followed a planned approach in addressing this unprecedented disaster and their lack of being flexible and adapting/enhancing strategy to mitigate this series of events caused the continuous oil-leakage for 87 days. They also lack the coordination with different stakeholders and discussions on approach prevented them three days to take measure. Consensus approach would have been key Mintzberg Waters (ibid) as they need to take input from US government agencies, environmentalists and other lease-partners to devise the most appropriate damage control mechanism. Flexibility and transparent communication would have been key in estimating the damage and make containment plains where BP failed in establishing consensus and maintain transparency about the actual size of the disaster. A combination of emergent [taking input from all stakeholders] and Umbrella approach would have been reduce the damage. Ideological approach, Mintzberg Waters (ibid) where collective vision of all stakehol ders are respected might have been useful. Five-Force analysis BP has strong supplier groups [US government, Transocean, Hyundai] they are few and supply highly differentiated products so they pose significant threat to the industry (Porter, 2008/1979). BP suffered here as in future these suppliers would either expel BP [US govt already did a ban on future explorations by BP in US] or impose stringent conditions. BP loses its production capability directly affecting its market-share, posing a moderate threat to BP from strong buyer perspective. Substitutes and new-entrants are of minor threat but rivalry is of major impact. Shell initiated aggressive campaign against BP after this incident, causing more damage to BP brand-value. Conclusions/Recommendations In our time protection of the environment is a priority and such environmental disasters have a huge impact created and multifold by media and environment agencies to damage the portfolio value of the Oil-MNC. Firms needed to justify their actions to all stakeholders including the valuable shareholders. Firms need to balance between profitability and responsibility (Breeze, 2012) and demonstrate their adherence in a sustainable corporate social responsibility. Not only in their vision statement but also everyday acts. Assurance of human safety and environmental protection is pivotal for any industry; such things remain sometimes neglected in leased oil-rigs, reforms is necessary; both at the government layer imposing regulatory steps on quality-control and the firms internal decision-making process to ensure their political autonomy, technical expertise, and their full consideration of environmental protection (OCS report, 2011). Instead of one-sided blaming MNCs for this disaster w e need to equip ourselves from preventing such incidents to occur, suggestions Strengthen the collaboration between government-agencies and MNCs, Firms need to invest on RD to improve spill-response. Analyze the traditional measures to contain the spill and introduce upgrades both Firms and Govt. responsible BP to invest to enhance its spill preparedness and control mechanisms Invest on robust design, leakage measurement and containment Government and BP need to ensure fair, transparent damage control and estimating mechanism. Restore the coastal wild life and marine food-chain, trust building measures need to taken by government to assure the seafood consumers. Firms and government need to establish stringent measures to safeguard the human-life on the rig and the rescue-staff. Long term restoration [of the marine life] plan is needed from Government funded by BP to mitigate the irreparable loss of the coastal-life. Government should impose laws on the financial responsibility of the firms operating in the area during such disaster Such confidence-building measures would slowly but steadily improve the environmental situation of Mexican-Gulf and lessons learnt from this disaster would help firms to enhance their disaster preparedness. Disasters caused by blow-outs might occur in future too and investment needed to prevent such situation [failsafe mechanism], if that fails capping of blow-out need to be done swiftly and relief-walls might be suitable to restrict the leakage, Jernelo ¨v (ibid). Consensus and umbrella approach, Mintzberg and Waters (ibid) where strategies originate/revolve around consensus- in such a multiparty environment reaching consensus is of utmost important, no stakeholder can devise/deploy strategy in single handed. Government needs to develop the boundaries of tolerance and impose safety-mechanisms, within which firms need to operate and periodic checking mechanism should be in place to ensure firms operate within their limits set by government. Corporate Social Responsibility determine s the expected behavior of a firm towards its commitment to society and responsibility of conducts for environment BP needs to demonstrate this in their future plants.

Antimicrobial Assay Worksheet

University of Phoenix Material Antimicrobial Assay Worksheet Review the image and refer to Ch. 26 of Brock Biology of Microorganisms to answer the following questions. [pic] Adapted from The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, by Islands in the Sea, 2002. Answer the following in 100 to 200 words each: 1. What does this picture represent? To what is the area around the disks proportional?This picture represents an antimicrobial agent susceptibility assay by using the disc diffusion technique. The test measures the antimicrobial activity, by determining the smallest amount of agent necessary to inhibit the growth of a specific test organism, this value is the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). The MIC expresses the lowest concentration of agent that completely inhibits the growth of the test organism (Madigan, Martinko, Stahl,  & Clark, 2012).The areas around the disks are the zone of inhibition, which are â€Å"proportional to the amount of antimicrobial agent add ed to the disc, the solubility of the agent, the diffusion coefficient, and the overall effectiveness of the agent† (Madigan, Martinko, Stahl,  & Clark, 2012, p. 763). 2. Which letter disk has the least potent antibiotic? Why? Which has the most? How do you know? Letter F disc has the least potent antibiotic because the zone of inhibition is not present with indicates that the antimicrobial agent is not an affective inhibitor of the test organism.Letter D disc has the greatest potent antibiotic because the agent is quite an affective inhibitor of the test organism. This agent creates a proportionally large zone of inhibition, which is greater than other test agents are. 3. Refer to Figure 26. 10 of Brock Biology of Microorganisms. What has happened in the minimum inhibitory concentration tube? Approximately, what is the bacterial concentration in that tube? In the minimum inhibitory concentration tube, the agent inhibits the growth of the test organism.This level of inhibiti on varies with certain factors to include the incubation conditions, culture medium, test organism, incubation time, and composition of the culture (Madigan, Martinko, Stahl,  & Clark, 2012). The bacterial concentration is approximately the same in the tube that contains the minimum inhibitory concentration level of antimicrobial agent because the agent inhibits the growth of the test organism. Reference Madigan, M. T. , Martinko, J. M. , Stahl, D. A. , & Clark, D. P. (2012). Brock biology of microorganisms (13th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Christian Essay Topics Features

Christian Essay Topics Features The Fundamentals of Christian Essay Topics Revealed Writing the college application essay is a difficult gig. Writing a college argumentative research paper isn't as simple as it might seem at first. Inspiration to make your own advertising or media argumentative essay topics isn't difficult to discover. College application essay topics are an essential portion of an entertaining and compelling bit of writing. Here's What I Know About Christian Essay Topics Creative Essay writing is currently recognized among the most useful activity for kids for their general personality development. Example 1 The area of psychology is an exact enduring one. Writing a thesis affords you the chance to display your mastery of the area of study in which you've invested years, together with an opportunity to donate to the body of knowledge on a particular subject within that area. Thesis topics have to be easily manageable given factors like your geographic regi on and the resources and facilities that are available to you. An excellent thesis topic is an overall idea that's in demand of development, verification or refutation. In many professional contexts, respectful argumentation is the thing that leads to the growth of new thoughts and perspectives. The manner in which you formulate your argument heavily is dependent upon the essay type. Prior exposure or knowledge about a specific subject provides better hindsight which could bring much better arguments on the issue. How to Get Started with Christian Essay Topics? The cost of an essay rides on the total amount of effort the writer has to exert. Writing about nuclear weapons is always a superb idea. Picking a topic is an essential issue that partly estimates final success of the job. Finding the subject of your interest will allow you to work harder on your project and show your style in the easiest way possible. Furthermore, if Jesus were not God his death wouldn't be abun dant enough to cover the sins of you and me. The Bible states, Watch and pray so you aren't going to fall into temptation. To be a good Christian there are many things that you should practice. All Christians want to understand how to handle temptation. Just continue your introduction short and easy. A methodical strategy is necessary to compose a process essay. Always remember a great persuasive essay needs to be persuasive. You will likely discover that the former thesis isn't the very same as the one you're considering after all. There's more than 1 way to compose a narrative essay. Narrative essay topics it is a bit different from other types. An argumentative essay is a certain kind of academic writing. To begin with, your motivation for a writer is affected by the essay topic you select. Categories, essay topics might be divided into. Researching the topic will permit you to find out more about what fascinates you, and should you pick something you really like, writing the essay will be more enjoyable. So without further ado, here are a few effective writing tips to create your common app essay stick out! Quite frequently, the ideal topic is one which you truly care about, but you also will need to get well prepared to research it. You must be very careful when choosing an essay topic. Therefore, the topic you select plays a crucial role. In the event you're not required to work on the distinct subject matter, you must do what you can to locate a compelling one by yourself. When you're permitted to write about whatever you want, never rely on a person's thoughts about the subject you like as a pivotal criterion for your choice. Without doubt, it would be easier that you learn more about the topic that's related to the area of your interest. When you're picking your topic, bear in mind that it's much simpler to write about something which you currently have interest ineven in case you don't know a great deal about it. For instance, in college, you might be requested to compo se a paper from the opposing standpoint. To lessen stress whilst writing a research paper, you ought to be certain you have chosen the most suitable topic. Discover which of the topics, you currently have a fairly good background on which will make it possible for you to have a relative edge. Argumentative research paper topics are a ton a lot easier to find than to produce. Both stories sold the very first time out. Whether women ought to be permitted to be ordained as clergy. Finally, it's important to pick topics that one feels comfortable to write on so you can do justice to them. It is probably that a man or woman may not locate a specific topic interesting which others might. You might also give some general facts or informative details to pull in the readers. There are several different topics that you can use in writing process essays. Please don't E-mail us because you discover information here you don't agree with. Attempt to develop a couple of possible topics in the event you encounter a deficiency of supporting information.

Stigma Against Individuals with Mental Illness - 2913 Words

One big issue in the world right now is stigma against individuals with mental illness. One may ask, â€Å"What is stigma?† â€Å"Stigma† is one of those words one hears a lot, but if one was asked to define it, one would know where to start. In fact, the word â€Å"stigma† is in the top 10% of look ups on the Merriam-Webster Dictionarys website. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of stigma is â€Å"a set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something.† The first known use of the word â€Å"stigma† was circa 1593. â€Å"Stigma† is derived from the Latin word â€Å"stigmat†, which means a mark or brand (Merriam-Webster, Incorporated). Types of stigma include prejudice, discrimination, cues, and stereotypes. Now, one†¦show more content†¦In addition, stigma against mental illness is happening in our schools. Bullying and harassment for mental illnesses and for common practic es done by those with mental disorders, such as self harm, happen everyday, in person and online. In Lakeland, Florida, two girls were arrested for bullying and cyberbullying a girl named Rebecca Sedwick to her death by suicide. The girls were charged with aggravated stalking, which is a third-degree felony. The girls, ages twelve and fourteen at the time, bullied her at school. When Sedwick switched schools because of the bullying, the girls continued to bullying her online. The two girls sent Sedwick messages like â€Å"go drink bleach†, â€Å"go kill yourself†, and â€Å"nobody likes you†. Sedwick was additionally cutting her arms to â€Å"relieve stress† from the bullying. The two girls supposedly knew Sedwick was self-harming herself. After Sedwick committed suicide by jumping off a cement factory tower, one of the girls posted on a social networking site called Facebook. She posted â€Å"Yes ik I bulllied REBECCA nd she killed her self but IDAF.â⠂¬  Only when she was arrested did she claim her Facebook was hacked. When police looked at Sedwicks computer, search queries like â€Å"how to get blades out of razors† and â€Å"how many over-the-counter drugs do you take to die† showed up (Stanglin). If this case is not anShow MoreRelatedWhen An Individual Has Lung Cancer, There Is An Immediate1411 Words   |  6 PagesWhen an individual has lung cancer, there is an immediate rush of support. Family, friends, and acquaintances flock to their hospital room, and shower them with love and sympathy. These people are the support network essential to the cancer patient for a successful recovery. However, what happens when an individual is diagnosed with depression? An immediate look of disgust and accusing eyes glare at the victim. 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