PEST ANALYSIS OF SHELL

PEST Analysis of Shell



PEST Analysis of Shell

Introduction

This paper aims to analyze the external environment of Shell Group. PEST Analysis would be used for analyzing Shell's external environment. Shell Group is a global group that operates almost all over the world, and that is the reason why, political, economic, social, and technological elements do affect the operations of the company. The PEST framework of analysis will ascertain a further comprehensive assessment on the potential effects of issues that have affected the performance of Shell's business in the past, and are also expected to affect it in the future (Bensoussan, and Fleisher, 2008, pp. 200-220). In order to provide readers with the information of the company's business conduct, company overview is already provided in the first part of the paper. The paper will be concluded by summarizing the main point discussed in the assessment of the external environment throughout the paper.

Discussion

Company Overview

Royal Dutch Shell Group RDSG is an international company of petrochemical and energy organizations, having approximately 104, 000 staff members in above 110 countries across the globe. It is known as the second leading firm in the private sector of energy and petrochemicals industry of the world and is also amongst the six largest energy companies of the world. The headquarters of the Shell Group is located in The Hague, Netherlands (Cummins and Beasant, 2005, pp. 1-10). Shell plays a significant part in helping to meet growing demand of energy around the globe and that also in ways that are environmentally, socially and economically responsible. In the year 2007, Forbes Global 2000, positioned the Shell amongst one of the 8 leading firms around the globe. The Fortune magazine, in the year 2007, ranked Shell, as the third largest corporation across the globe (Gerretson, 2005, pp.26).

The priorities and strategies for of Shell Group for the coming years include expanding its operations towards environmental sustainability while maintain a narrow focus of the profits. Moreover, Shell also gives intense focus to the growth and delivery of its products, which provides leverage to Shell's robust portfolio. In 2008, Shell stressed that in “investing in new lands the company has been rejuvenating its portfolio for a world of higher and more volatile commodity prices, increased competition, and higher costs” (Doyle, 2002, pp. 89-91).

As argued by Hovers (2008), Royal Dutch Shell is a famous company of oil and gas. The corporation has international oil reserves which are considered to be equivalent to 11.9 billion barrels of oil. The crude oil, which is the major product of the company, is produced in Oman, the United States, the United Kingdom and Nigeria.

In addition to this, organization is also involved in producing refined chemicals and products; trading of electricity and gas, development of renewable sources of energy and transportation of natural gas. The company also functions 46,000 gas stations around the world, and is taken as the major retail group of oil on the international level (Beaton, ...