Developing realistic scenarios for the environment: Lessons from Brent Spar

Why did Shell—renowned for its scenario planning—find itself so badly adrift with the Brent Spar? And why, later in 1995, was it wrong-footed again in Nigeria? The answers reflect deep currents already clear to the company's scenario writers in the 1980s, but retaining their ability to surprise. The authors conclude that Shell's scenarios have been ‘individualist’, ‘hierarchist’ or some combination of the two; none have adopted an ‘egalitarian perspective’. They also suggest that the ‘Values Shift’ scenario—developed for European Partners for the Environment—may hold clues to future shifts in business strategy.     

Market segmentation: an integrated framework

Contrary to the narrow, demand-oriented approach to market segmentation taken in much of the marketing and planning literature, this article illustrates a broader, integrated framework which includes both the demand and supply sides of the competitive equation. The author argues that starting with ‘product’ characteristics is both an easier and more actionable way of segmenting markets than the traditional marketing approach that typically begins with the customer or ‘people’ characteristics. This approach can be employed by a business to make decisions about entering a market segment, differentiating a brand from its competition, positioning it in the market and communicating its quality to the customers. Customers, too, generally rely on product characteristics to perceive and evaluate the quality claims made by different competitors. Thus, the article bridges an important gap between strategy formulation and strategy implementation: an area often neglected in the strategy literature. The proposed approach focuses not only on customer benefits or needs, but also on the resources necessary to satisfy them and demonstrates this with examples from Apple, Church & Dwight and many other companies. To show a practical application, the article presents a price-quality-benefit segmentation profile of the US toothpaste market which revealed three strategic groups.     

Computerized corporate planning

Computerized Corporate Planning as defined in this study is: the use of the computer to simulate the effect of alternative strategies on achievement of corporate objectives; the capability of answering ‘What if?’ questions.

The increasing complexity of business firms operating in a rapidly changing environment has led many managers in recent years to consider the development of computerized corporate planning systems. This article is concerned with an in depth study of some 55 such installations in North America and Europe. The objective of this effort conducted during the period of June –November 1970, was to determine the state of the art, identify problems of installation, and project trends in the rapidly evolving use of computers in planning. Specific questions include:

What is the economic justification for these systems? How are they being used? Who is using them? Have results measured up to expectations? What are the costs? Are organizational problems incurred?     

R & D and corporate planning in government

David Peretz is in charge of the Economics Section of the Inter-Bank Research Organization, London. Before that he served as an administrative civil servant in the Ministry of Technology, being for some of that time attached to the Programmes Analysis Unit (PAU) at Harwell, and concerned with studies of the organization of government industrial R & D establishments.

This article is based on a paper submitted—in their personal capacities—by the author and James Robertson (Director of IBRO) to the Government in February 1972. This paper was in turn inspired by the Government's publication of Lord Rothschild's report on ‘The Organization and Management of Government R & D’.

Like other large organizations, governments are having to come to grips with the interaction between long range planning and R & D activities. Changes are called for both in the methods of choosing priorities for R & D projects and in the organization of the Government's own research resources. The implications of ‘corporate’ planning for Government science have yet to be fully recognized.     

Corporate strategy and entrepreneurial vision

The author here describes her conception of strategic vision from the basis of which she has developed a successful business using information technology and a scattered work- force working from their own homes or from a neighbourhood work centre. She defines her term ‘corporate planning by vision’ and outlines its strengths and weaknesses.     

Planning and economics

It is an ironic fact that British industrialists, who regularly complained so bitterly about the amount of planning (or interference) by the last government, should have been so ready to embrace Corporate Planning. Yet this welcome has been very real, as can be judged by the number of advertisements appearing in the quality papers for corporate planners and the large numbers who enrol for any course which incorporates corporate planning in its title. The irony lies in the fact that formal definitions of corporate planning could be applied as much to the state as the firm. However, whilst the one is ‘good’ business the other is alleged to sap initiative, ruin morale, and interfere with the natural workings of the market place.     

Manpower planning at national and company level

Discussions of manpower planning take place in the context either of national plans or of company plans. From time to time the view has been expressed that the coverage and the time scale of these two types of planning are so different that there is nothing in common between them. This paper considers whether, in practice, ‘manpower’ is really so different from ‘personnel’. After all, the individuals regarding whom both plans are made are the same people; in both cases the planners are concerned with the posts they are to fill, with their salaries and with their mobility.     

Do your planning processes meet the reality test?

Sophisticated planning systems and touted techniques have never been a guarantee of success to a business. We believe this is because there has been too much focus on the content of strategy rather than the underlying process, and because the process is often poorly matched to the nature of the problem. For strategic situations the issues are usually complex and unpredictable with many unknowns and a large human factor, typical of the problem category defined as ‘wicked’. This article identifies a set of seven fundamental process principles for dealing with such problems. The principles are a starting point in the effort to codify the ‘art’ of successful strategic planning. Several examples of the use of the principles in business contexts are provided.     

Corporate planning and Corporate Collapse

In this article John Argenti describes what he found during a year's investigation into company failure that he undertook for a recently published book ‘Corporate Collapse’. At first it was difficult to see any pattern but certain conclusions gradually emerged as he discussed the causes and symptoms of failure with more and more people.

Many of the lessons are of particular significance for bankers, shareholders, accountants and others but John Argenti believes there are a number of extremely important lessons for corporate planners as well—especially as ‘defective response to change’ turns out to be one of the prime causes of failure in mature companies.     

Managing Change at Novotel: Back to the Future

Novotel is one of the world's major hotel chains, occupying a leading place in Europe and with locations globally. We interpret Novotel's change management programme in the 1990s in three parts. First, we summarise the actions that managers took in terms of strategy and organisation. Second, we consider the sequence and timing of events, and how this resulted in rapid transformation in an organisation employing more than 30,000 people. Third, we emphasise the dialectical nature of the change processes: an element often ignored in the literature that likes to see things as an either–or rather than a both. We observed both deliberation and experimentation; both integration and differentiation. We also observed both preservation and transformation, as noted in our sub-title ‘Back to the Future’. Finally, we wrap up with a discussion explaining how our story can add to better thinking about change. We suggest that we can shed new light on some old debates and provide tangible guides for action.     

Planning for technological innovation part I. Investment in technology

In the modern industrial age, investment can no longer be seen purely in terms of expenditure on hardware or ‘tangible’ investment; the knowledge content or ‘intangible’ investment is equally important. Of course, intangible investment was always a feature of the manufacturing business but in earlier times the additional effort was mostly supplied by the entrepreneur. The complexity of modern technology, the multidisciplinary skills required and the sheer speed of change have altered this; except possibly in the new venture companies. It follows that a full understanding of the effects of technological change on industry can only be obtained if all aspects of investment are identified and measured. It is then possible to determine how much of its resources any particular industry is allocating to its promotion of products for the future, and whether this has changed significantly over time.

This paper therefore is concerned with the totality of investment, its size, content and economic importance.     

Organized planning in major U.K. companies

Corporate Long Range Planning began to be fashionable in Britain in the 1960's. Now it should be possible for the managers which pioneered this development to analyse their experience for the benefit of others. This article reports the results and conclusions from a detailed study of corporate planning in 27 major British companies, each with 2–8 years experience. The aim was to discover why organized planning was introduced; what factors affected its development and what results were achieved.     

Medicines in the 1990's: Experience with a Delphi forecast

‘Medicines in the 1990's’ created great public interest when it was published recently. It forecast, for example, that by 1990 it should be possible to replace almost all parts of the body, except the brain and spinal cord with transplants or prostheses. It also predicted that by 1990, the social use of medicines will have become accepted as legitimate. This article describes step by step, how the Delphi forecast was made and the effect which it has had.     

Energy and the environment—A Delphi forecast

The author is currently an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. In the long range forecasting project ‘Energy and the Environment’, discussed in this article (conducted in 1970|1971 at the Pennsylvania State University), the Delphi method was employed to evaluate potential breakthroughs in energy technologies and environmental protection, management and planning innovations during the next 50 years. The priorities for energy—environmental problems, the growth of the traditional energy technologies and the probabilities of environmental ‘episodes’ in the 1970's were additional topics in the Delphi study.     

The planning function and input-output analysis

Long range planning has been defined as a decision-making process involving the commitment of resources—money, people, time, capital—today, the payback or return on which will not be realized until some future period. Since the heart of the planning process is the making of decisions about allocations in some systematic way, economic analysis, armed with its concepts of opportunity cost, indifference theory, marginal analysis, and investment theory, provides much of the theoretical framework for good long range planning models.

If planning is to be done in a scientific manner, there shouldexist common principles and study approaches, regardless of the nature of the organism being planned for. Thus planning for the individual, family, company, industry, association or state should vary according to the relevant information to be used in making decisions and the priorities of the objectives but not in the essential method by which decisions are arrived at. This is major theme of the paper.

As a result of more, than a decade of experience as a ‘planner’ for a number of diverse business and government groups, and through the process of articulating this planning experience as a teacher, I have developed a systematic approach to the planning process. The model has its own conceptual framework that includes, as information filters and display devices, unique adaptations of input-output notation. First in this article I will highlight some of the elements of the planning process, as I have constructed them. Then I will proceed to describe the specifications of the planning system, with particular emphasis on the use of input-output analysis.     

The corporate planner as consultant

The role of consultancy, in contrast to other interactive roles at central staff level, is tied to personal and professional relationships and the credibility of the service hinges on skills and direct personal relationships and not on a structure. This article focuses on a ‘planning idea’ involving the restructuring of the planning procedure and a de-emphasis on the role of staff.     

EIS—A guide for executives

Although the use of executive information systems (EIS) is increasing, many senior executives have such mixed feelings about them that there is an ‘EIS paradox’. Information managers and software suppliers believe this is because senior executives are intimidated by information technology, but this does not hold up to scrunity. The EIS paradox occurs because of failure to explain coherently how EIS fit with other aspects of the organizational database and what EIS can and cannot do for a senior executive and his or her organization. This article is designed to close the ‘information gap’ about EIS specifically for senior executives. The change in terminology from ‘data processing’ to ‘information technology’ is symptomatic of a change in the way in which computers are used. Rather than being the mere province of the data professional, information technology as exemplified by EIS can be applied to tasks where judgement and selectivity are required. The crucial point about EIS is, however, that computing can complement and increase managerial qualities of imagination and intelligence but not replace them.     

Cutting back bureaucracy in a public service

The British public service is respected for its efficiency and objectivity. But it has a music hall reputation for bureaucracy and lack of initiative. As with many long-acquired reputations, nothing nowadays could be further from the truth. A revolution has swept through the corridors of Whitehall and the many other places throughout the UK where the public service is alive and well. This revolution has been described in Morley,¹ and other articles² have shown how strategic planning and management have been adopted by individual parts of the public sector. Having set the scene in ‘Building a New Organization for Nature Conservation’,² the author now describes how English Nature moved on to reflect its new strategic approach in a different organization structure which broke many of the traditional mores of the public sector.     

Investing in CAD: a case of ad hoc decision-making

There is growing evidence to suggest that the success of new technology is linked to whether it is introduced as part of an overall corporate strategy or alternatively as an ‘ad hoc’ response to falling profits, extended lead-times and reduced productivity. Interviewing engineering managers in leading electronics and engineering companies including BICC, Ferranti, Rolls Royce, British Aerospace, Thorn EMI and others, the author found that investment in computer-aided design was not always implemented in line with corporate strategy, but instead as part of a sub-strategy, the success of which was usually constrained by the accounting methods used to justify it as well as the attitudes adopted by senior managers. In discussing these issues, the article compares British and Japanese managements' approach to new technology and questions the validity of traditional capital budgeting methods.     

Strategic planning for increased profit in the small business

This article examines the problems facing the owner-managers of small businesses, and details the investment required in strategic process development which would guarantee the critical 5 per cent difference to ensure the successful growth and adaptability of the company. Formal strategic planning needs to blend with team development to create the concept of ‘strategy-in-use’ and the development of effective management teamwork out of a planning process.