In mature, big-bet resource industries, new growth requires taking significant risks. Making commercially successful bets is the core competency that will differentiate the consistent winners from the rest of the field.
In this Executive eBriefing, we will share the best practices from across three similar, yet insular, industries: oil and gas, chemicals, and power and gas utilities. These industries share common value driver:
- Slow underlying growth rates – GDP or less
- High uncertainty from commodity price cycles, geo-political events, regulatory changes and environmental pressures
- Constant incremental capacity growth and performance improvements
- Large investment "bets" long before cash flow begins
- Long economic life cycles of investments.
The similarities of these industries allow senior executives to learn from each other as they seek to grow through investing in new business opportunities. For oil and gas companies, these likely will include investment in new provinces for conventional and unconventional resources as well as substitutes for oil products. Power and gas utilities may invest in new products and services, business models and new technology. For chemical companies, the major growth thrust will likely be continued investments in few, high-growth market segments, and major new technology commercialization.
Increasingly, these industries will also be affected by the same major strategic and technological developments. For example, widespread use of fuel cells will force all three industries to redefine their technology bets, geographic focus, and business models. Gas-to-Liquids technology could fundamentally shift the basic economics of chemical feedstock and utility fuels.
In all these asset-intensive industries, best-practice strategic decision-making embodies several common principles. In this eBriefing we address:
- Embracing and understanding uncertainty
- Generating a full range of strategic alternatives
- Taking advantage of industry dynamics and optionality
- Gaining commitment in inherently complex organizations.
This program should be of interest to executives in oil and gas, chemicals, and power and gas utilities, or other asset-intensive industries who seek to learn from best practices across industry sectors.
Speakers
Gregory Bean, leader of SDG's energy sector, has more than 20 years of international oil industry experience, focusing on strategy development and implementation, organization restructuring, and performance operations improvement.
Mark Matousek, who heads SDG's electricity sector, is experienced in corporate strategy development, R&D planning, marketing analysis, and operations planning.
Hans van Doesburg is managing director of SDG's Chemicals, Electricity, and Energy Practice and head of the chemicals sector. He has more than 25 years professional experience in strategy development, operations, and inter-corporate transactions.