Final Paper
Management 5000 – OGF1 2010 Management

Statement of the Problem
From the perspective of strategic planning and leadership, how could British Petroleum Company (BP) have minimized the risk of the deepwater oil drilling incident of April 20, 2010, and done a better job of crisis management after the fact?
This environmental emergency was the result of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion which killed 11 workers, injured 17 others, and resulted in a sea-floor oil gusher leaking 185 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The media is filled with stories criticizing BP for not taking proper precautions to prevent the accident, and for their public response immediately following it. The following are representative of the headlines covering media outlets across the country and internationally: “BP touts itself as ‘green’, but faces PR disaster with BP oil spill” (Farhi, 2010), “Another Torrent BP Works to Stem: Its C.E.O.” (Krauss, 2010) “BP contingency plans for dealing with oil spill was riddled with errors” (Clark, 2010), “BP’s failures made worse by PR mistakes” (Weber, 2010), “BP oil spill: Leadership and IT failure (Krigsman, 2010).
Statement of major relevant principles to be applied
The major relevant principles to be applied to this analysis are strategic planning and leadership as they relate to crisis management.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is the process by which organizations define their strategy and make decisions on allocating resources to pursue that strategy. This includes decisions about the organization’s goals as they relate to long term survival, value, and growth. Strategic plans are heavily influenced by external forces, and there are numerous analytical tools available to evaluate different strategic approaches. The strategic plan an organization chooses to adopt is a strong indicator