BY MAYA GREEN
“For each community there is an appointed term. When their time arrives, they can neither delay it for a moment, nor could they advance it.”
— Surah Al-Araf:34
‘A World of Bubbles’ was the title of a cautionary tale of how the world we live in would plausibly evolve into the future. It was just one of the story lines amongst an alternative set of circumstances or scenarios which were linked and defined by a logical narrative leading to the conclusion that the world we live in would be made up of a set of different groupings of countries and nation states.
Each grouping was defined as having their own characteristics and overriding rationale to coalesce around each other to form a discrete group apart from other groupings. The narrative portrays the birth of a new constellation of countries made up of an reorganisation of the prevailing pattern or order of things. The ‘World of Bubbles’ is a new constellation that is evolving in the firmament, as it were. Something almost predestined to be so, if the narrative were to materialise as crafted.
It was a story that was formulated from the bottoms up to be an engaging and realistic narrative that is predictive of how the world as we saw it back then could evolve into in the future. This story crafting or establishing of plausible outcomes of things was done in the context of a scenario planning exercise for the Malaysian national oil corporation, in the early 2000s — specifically in the year 2001, if my receding recollection serves me right.
Strategy and Scenario Planning
For those in the know, and for the benefit of the still ignorant and uninitiated — the term ‘Scenario Planning’ refers to a management art and technique whereby alternative stories about the future — often with many seemingly improbable and dramatic twists, are crafted and developed as a backdrop and the setting for the interplay a various forces and influences in the realms of political, economic, social and technological dimensions. The primary purpose and objective of such an exercise was to ensure the adoption of a set of robust strategies to meet the uncertainties of the future, helping the organisation navigate a safe passage in the years and decades that lay ahead.
This kind of analysis and strategy review is normally done amidst the real life setting of corporate competition and the fight for survival of the fittest and the real-life intense battles for influence, growths and profits. Yes, business is a proxy war for the maximising of profits and needs to be fought hard using all the tools that one could muster. Scenario planning is obviously relevant in other contexts as well and hence a useful tool to learn, deploy and master.
Without belabouring the point, the art of scenario planning is a useful and powerful strategic tool to understand the future. It’s the tool of trade for the oracle. I am certain the Oracle of Omaha — with his remarkable insights, would have employed it extensively. It allows companies and organisations to move away from linear thinking and to better understand external changes which will fundamentally affect the dynamics and environment within which businesses and all associated action plans and activities are being undertaken.
Scenario Planning is one of the few management innovations to have actually been created in a corporate setting, amidst the real-life battle for dominance and the generation of profits. It was pioneered by Shell in the 1960s in the context of the oil and gas industry. To me, I also see scenario planning as a ‘way of thinking’ — or more appropriately, as a ‘way of contemplating’ about and hopefully ‘seeing’ the future. It’s a tool for insight. The seer’s magic wand.
In that sense, scenario planning is a very powerful approach for organizations of any size and scope to have, no matter the industry they are in. It can be used to address the complex challenges of large global organisations, as well as small ones, who are operating in a live environment which is in a constant flux and is always evolving.
Petronas Adopts Scenario Planning
I believe that Petronas was the first major Malaysian corporation to adopt scenario planning as a preferred tool for strategy development. Perhaps, is was that early insight that has had contributed to build Petronas into the global organisation it is today. A small company from a small country with hydrocarbon reserves much smaller than many other countries, Petronas somehow managed to grow into respected and successful multinational corporation. Once upon a time it was listed as one of the New Seven Sisters — a term used in the industry literature to refer to the top oil and gas companies in the world.
When I joined the organisation as a rookie trainee lawyer in 1982, Petronas was just a nascent oil company learning the ropes and was a domestic player — mainly as a regulator of the oil and gas industry, not yet a full-fledged oil and gas operator. The idea of operating outside the national boundaries and being a global company did not even cross anyone’s mind at that time. But within less than 10 years, Petronas made the decision to “go global” in 1990.
Hardly two years into my posting in Miri as part of the team assigned to take over the ownership and operatorship of the 9 Baram Delta Fields offshore Miri, from Sarawak Shell Bhd I was recalled back to HQ (KL) where I was inducted into the special team tasked to kickstart Petronas’ foray into the unchartered waters of international oil exploration.
Metaphorically, Petronas was then a small fry being thrown into the wide-open seas where hungry and ferocious monster predators were circling around waiting to gobble up the small fries and to tear apart unwary lesser fishes that would dare swim amongst the giants. Well, that was how many of us felt at the time — looking at the enormity and complexity of the tasks at hand.
Globalisation of Operations
The first venture into the international arena was through a ‘farm-in’ arrangement into an onshore exploration license in Myanmar held by the Japanese company Idemitsu Oil Company Ltd. That maiden foray was a failure, in the sense that no commercial discovery was made from that first step into the international exploration arena. But the lessons learnt were invaluable and provided useful insights on how to secure, manage and execute subsequent projects. It was a necessary tuition fee which yielded returns a thousand times over for Petronas in subsequent years.
The next destination was Vietnam where after two unsuccessful exploration wells were drilled, the Ruby Field was discovered offshore South Vietnam. The Ruby Field was the first overseas exploration success for Petronas. I was personally involved in the negotiation, drafting and subsequent operationalising of that PSC (Production Sharing Contract) for Blocks 01 & 02, Offshore South Vietnam. I recall our small core team made some 50 trips to Vietnam in those early days — from the first ‘recce trip’ to Hanoi untill the signing of a legally binding Heads of Agreement (HOA) with Petrovietnam, the Vietnamese National Oil Corporation, which outlined the main terms of the deal agreed after intense negotiations, and which formed the basis for the full termed Production Sharing Contract that was signed later on the 9 September 1991.
After Vietnam came Iran (2 Projects were successfully won and executed, with Total as our partner), followed by the Sudan. And from then on, the rest of the countries followed — spread across the globe from East to West and from North to South. By the time I was headhunted to lead a subsidiary of a major oil and gas multinational in Singapore in 2013, Petronas was already a truly multinational corporation on her own with footprints and successful ventures in more than 30 countries worldwide. I could write on and on about the ventures we undertook but maybe a book to recall the stories of those forays into the unknown and exotic destinations, far for the shores of Malaysia, would be more appropriate. Maybe another time.
Maya Green is the pen name for Dato Medan Abdullah, a regular contributor to this paper. He writes on varied subjects of interest. Needless to say, the views expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not represent that of the newspaper.
