In essence, the strategic planning process in QP aims at building a shared understanding among all stakeholders (staff, management, subsidiaries, government bodies) and making sure that strategies are implemented through good plans.
The way by which this is carried out is through intensive communication activities on a rolling and iterative basis.
The scope of the process is a corporate one, hence it spans over all the functional and business activities in the QP group. Currently the process covers 28 profit centers and 5 support functions. It starts with the Corporate Mission and Objectives and ends with quarterly follow ups of actions plans.
The formally approved Corporate Mission and Objectives act as the ultimate criteria by which actions are judged; they also act as the vehicle by which the corporation is glued together.
The formal and structured planning process at QP attempts at making sure that these objectives are implemented by firstly formulating business strategies for the five major Strategic Business Units as often as required (see graph below for names of the business units).
These strategies are discussed and agreed upon during the course of the year. In the first quarter of any given year Corporate Planning Department prepares a draft of the “Annual Planning Instructions & Assumptions” which gets discussed widely within the corporation.
It also get discussed and agreed upon among the Senior Management Team (SMT), which is composed of the MD, the directors and corporate planning manager in QP. In April of every year the Managing Director issues the Planning Instructions & Assumptions documents to all QP’s group.
This document basically asks various contributors to the planning process to formulate 5-year rolling action plans in order to implement the various agreed upon strategies. It also details the role and expectations from various contributors to the process.
The SMT takes a first look at the draft plans during the summer, and final plans are submitted in at the end of September. In October of each year QP’s management and planners gather in what is known as “The Senior Management Planning Forum – SMPF” to discuss various plans.
The criteria for judging these plans would be clearly stated in the previously mentioned “Planning Instructions & Assumptions”. The final session of the SMPF would be dedicated to present the annual budget, which typically would be the first year of the “5 year corporate business plan”.
The final step in the would be quarterly gatherings to review performance against plans, both at strategic and operational levels; the criteria for judgment would be the above mentioned corporate objectives (for clarity, please refer to the planning process graph).
Discussions during the Senior Management Planning Forum often identify some issues not yet covered by the plan - new opportunities to be investigated or potential problems to be considered. These issues will be referred to the SMT for resolution; the team meets around eight times yearly, more meetings would take place if required.
Planning Process in Qatar Petroleum
