An Assessment of BP's Risk Management Issues and Poor Response to the Oil Spill

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Executive Summary
Business risk management has been a widely crucial tool for firms to include in their operations and its importance cannot be overlooked. In the case of British Petroleum (BP) Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill in 2010, there was negligence and lack in the contingency plan and response of the company to the risks that arose. It became evident in this analysis that BP’s manner of handling the incident had a massive financial implication that ensued negative public perception and company reputation and value.
The result of the analysis showed that BP could have had a better grip of the incident if they responded it with both a crisis communication plan and transparency. Their seeming indifference and unpreparedness reflected a perception worse than the incident itself to the public.
A further look at facts of the incident, analysis of the risk management issues and evaluation and recommendation of BP’s response to the crisis will be presented in this report.
Introduction and Aims
On the summer of 2010, the petroleum industry was shaken by one of the largest disasters in history known as the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. This resulted in the killing of eleven people, injuring of seventeen and an immeasurable damage to the ocean and the surrounding communities. BP had to immediately respond to the crisis and handle their financial and reputational risks.
The purpose of this report is to assess BP’s crisis management and communication plan to primarily analyze the possible failures in their response through a gathering of secondary data collected from various sources such as online journals, newspaper articles, blogs and case studies.
The researcher seeks to establish answers to:
1. What were the main risk management...

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