THE HAGUE, The Netherlands,
November 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --
Scenario planning helps Shell make critical business
decisions
Forty years ago, in 1972, work began on what many people regard
as the first Shell Scenarios document, published the following
year, though the roots of this work lie even further in the past.
Since then, scenario planning has been at the heart of Shell's
business, developing senior leadership understanding of critical
factors in the business environment and the possible directions
which economic, geopolitical and social systems could take, decades
into the future.
In the last four decades, Shell Scenario planners have
highlighted many key world trends and discontinuities, ensuring
that Shell as a business has been able to plan for several
eventualities and maintain business continuity through even the
most turbulent times. For example, the original Scenarios helped
Shell's leaders to prepare for the possibility of an oil price
shock - a prescient move given the Yom
Kippur war, which broke out in October 1973.
Jeremy Bentham, Shell's Vice
President, Global Business Environment, said: "Ever since our
Scenarios programme began forty years ago, we have been creating
and applying many different scenarios to anticipate global and
local economic, social and political changes and how they could
affect our business.
"Looking to the future, our scenario planners are now developing
a new angle to their work, which recognises the even more complex
nature of the modern world. It will provide clarity and insights by
zooming in on specific details, then zooming out to give a broader
perspective."
The next iteration of the Shell Scenarios, to be published in
early 2013, will focus on areas that are fundamental to the
development of energy and environmental systems in the
21st century. These include the connection between
energy, water and food systems and the impact of growing global
urbanisation.
To mark this major anniversary, we are publishing '40 Years of
Shell Scenarios', a reminder of our Scenarios work over many years
with illustrations of how scenario planning has had a positive
impact on the world in a variety of areas.
Speaking ahead of a panel discussion to coincide with the
booklet's launch today, Simon Henry,
Shell's Chief Financial Officer, said: "Shell has a long and
distinguished history of scenario planning, and the intelligence
and innovation that our Scenarios teams have contributed over many
decades has proved hugely beneficial to our business. By providing
unique insights and detailed analysis into the ever-changing global
landscape, and projecting forward possible outcomes, the Scenarios
team helps Shell's senior leadership make better informed decisions
about our current and future operations."
The Shell Scenarios methodology has been adapted by many
different organisations and individuals worldwide to help them in
their work.
Adam Kahane, Associate Fellow at
the Saïd Business School, Oxford
University said: "The Shell methodology has been one of the
main building blocks for the 'transformative scenario planning'
work that my colleagues and I have been engaged in for the past
twenty years. The spirit of Shell's scenario practice - logical and
rigorous, creative and open - has guided us throughout."
Peter Ho, Senior Advisor for the
Centre of Strategic Futures, a think-tank of the Singapore
Government, said: "The Singapore Government started using scenario
planning in 1991. Shell strongly supported this effort.
Today, scenario planning is embedded in the Government's annual
strategic planning cycle."
Philip Bobbit, Herbert Wechsler
Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia
University and Director of Columbia Law School's Center on
National Security, said: "One thing that's always impressed me
about the Shell people was that they did a whole new set of
scenarios every five years, sometimes even less. Yet if you look at
all their old scenarios, they are almost uncanny in showing how the
world would change. Scenario planning is perhaps the most important
analytical tool we have and Shell has been the most important
innovator in that process."
Amory Levins, Chairman and Chief
Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute, said: "Shell Scenarios are a
unique resource for all of us who think about the energy future.
Shell is the most far-sighted and strategic of the majors, largely
because the Scenarios informed the thinking of Shell leadership and
many others in the energy ecosystem. Without this exercise, people
would have a much shorter and dimmer view of the future than they
need to in a very long lead time business."
Notes to Editors:
For more information about Shell Scenarios, and to download '40
Years of Shell Scenarios', visit
http://www.shell.com/home/content/future_energy/scenarios/40_years.
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incorporated in England and
Wales, has its headquarters in
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York stock exchanges. Shell companies have operations
in more than 80 countries and territories with businesses including
oil and gas exploration and production; production and marketing of
liquefied natural gas and gas to liquids; manufacturing, marketing
and shipping of oil products and chemicals and renewable energy
projects. For further information, visit http://www.shell.com.
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SOURCE Royal Dutch Shell plc