Strategic analysis of British Petroleum and recommendations on change management

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my research supervisor, and all those people who helped me and supported me throughout my endeavor and provided me guidance and utmost inspiration.

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DECLARATION

I, (your name), declare that the following dissertation/thesis is entirely and individual work, and does not involve any unaided assistance. Furthermore, the dissertation/thesis has not been published or submitted before. The dissertation/thesis reflects my views and perspectives and does not reflect the opinion of the University.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSii

DECLARATIONiii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background1

Theoretical framework1

Rationale2

Research Aims and Objectives2

Research Questions2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW3

Strategy, culture and change management3

Strategic analysis of British Petroleum5

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY6

Search Technique6

Literature Search7

Search rationale7

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION8

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION9

REFERENCES10

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background

British Petroleum is the second largest publicly traded oil company in the world. As of 2009, the company took 4th place in Fortune Global 500. The company's headquarters is located in London. The first successful oil field began oil fields in Mashid and Suleiman, in south-western Persia, in May 1908. Already in 1909, was formed Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Burmah Oil Company owned 97% shares. The remaining shares were owned by the first chairman of the company, Lord Strathcona. D'Arcy served as director of the company, but did not significantly affect the further development of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The company has been producing oil and gas in many parts of the world, both onshore and offshore. Proved reserves of BP in 2009 amounted to 1.4 billion tons of liquid hydrocarbons, 1.26 trillion cubic meters of natural gas (Ledgerwood, 2009).

Theoretical framework

BP owns refineries and petrochemical facilities, network stations, produces oil brand Castrol. The company also holds shares in 10 pipelines and regasification terminals in the five North Sea. The company also owns a 47% stake in the pipeline for Alaska, as well as several receiving terminals for liquefied natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico. The company has a division BP Solar, producing and installing photovoltaic cells (Kaminski, 2001). BP is one of the major players in hydrogen energy. The company is building hydrogen fueling stations supplying hydrogen to them. It is also involved in various hydrogen demonstration projects around the world (Hudacek, 2008).

Rationale

Apart from being amongst one of the top selling petroleum companies of the world today, the management of British Petroleum does not seem to be less in generating new business ideas. British petroleum has a very good reputation amongst the customers when comes to petroleum products and car services. The management of British Petroleum has now expanded their business to the retail outlets available in different areas of the world. These outlets are different food and retail outlets where customers can get all the eatables and other products throughout the day, at competitive prices. The main outlets that come under the head of BP retail are BP express, BP connect, Wild Bean Café etc. More than 4500 people are employed in different parts of the world to satisfy the BP customers to the fullest.

Research Aims and Objectives

The aim of this research is to analyze the ...