Oil and Gas Industry: Strategic Management Report on Baker Hughes

This report provides a comprehensive strategic management analysis of Baker Hughes Oilfield Services, a major player in the oil and gas industry. It begins with an introduction to the industry and a justification for selecting Baker Hughes, highlighting its significance and role as a service provider. The report then delves into the various challenges the company faces, including issues like fluctuating oil prices, competition, technological advancements, environmental concerns related to water contamination and pipeline integrity, labor market tightness, and the impact of pricing policies. It also discusses the company's financial performance and external factors affecting its operations. The report concludes with recommendations for Baker Hughes to overcome these challenges and maintain its competitive edge in the industry. The analysis covers the impact of mergers, acquisitions, technological integration, and the evolving landscape of the oil and gas sector. The report underscores the importance of adapting to market changes and implementing effective strategies to ensure sustainable growth and profitability.

Running Head: OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY 1
Strategic Management: Baker Hughes
Oilfield Services

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Justification for Selected Organization............................................................................................4
Challenges Faced by Baker Hughes Oilfield Service......................................................................5
Recommendations............................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Oil and gas sector is one of the most revenue generator sectors worldwide. This industry is
working as an international powerhouse that employs thousands of employees all over the world
and generating a huge amount of revenues every year. Oil field service providers play an
important role in the growth and success of any oil and gas company. These oil field service
providers offer equipment, infrastructure, intellectual property and services required by global oil
and sector for exploring for, extracting and transporting oil and natural gas. There are so many
players in the category of oil field service providers. The success of oilfield service operations is
relied on effective management of the nations.
In the oil and gas industry, oilfield service provider is most significant segment. This segment is
considered as unsung workhorses of the oil and gas companies. In today’s business world,
oilfield service providers are struggling in United States. With the significant growth, they are
handling more risks and challenges. This report includes the challenges, which are faced by
oilfield service provider. The oil service provider that is taken into considered here is Baker
Hughes, a GE (General Electric) organization that is operating its business in United States. The
below report includes some challenges, which are confronted the organization in oilfield service
provider. At the end, it consists of some recommendations, which can be practiced by this
organization to overcome these challenges.
Justification for Selected Organization
The oilfield service provider, which is chosen for this discussion is Baker Hughes that is
originated from General Electric Company. It is an American industrial company and known as
largest oilfield service organization in the world. As of 2017, now the organization is 62.5
possessed by General Electric Corporation. Baker Hughes runs its business in over 120 nations
and offers the products to the companies of oil and gas sector for drilling process of oil,
evaluation, completion and manufacturing. The organization is headquartered in Houston, Texas,
United States. It is offering oilfield services, products, systems and technology to the oil and gas
sector all over the world. In addition, it also provides the industrial and other services for
refining, pipelines and process industry (Aliyeva, 2012). Currently, it is employing more than
49000 employees. Now, it is completely devoted to ending the merger with other oilfield service

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provider, i.e. Halliburton. At the end of 2015, the gross revenues of the company are $15.7
billion. Merger and acquisition is the primary strategy that contributed to the success and growth
of Baker Hughes organization in United States. Furthermore, the strategy of this oilfield service
provider grown with the increase in the production and manufacturing, upgrading the licenses
and protecting the extra land for new and fresh development and oil exploration activities. Other
organizations, which come under Baker Hughes via merger and acquisition, are having various
benefits from the company (Baker Hughes, 2017).
There are so many reasons, why Baker Hughes has been selected for this discussion. The
company is one of the most well-known brand in the industry and providing its services most of
the players in oil and gas sector. According to a survey, it is analyzed that this service provider
has a strong production system and provide higher quality services and systems to the oil and gas
sector players. General Electric is the major player in the oil and gas industry, which is
combining its services with Baker Hughes. By this, GE is having access to different oilfield tools
and equipment on which it expects to install its sensors, digital system and computers. This oil
field service provider should be considered by each and every company in oil and gas sector,
when it avails the services for its business. It will offer the benefits from installing these digital
tools in-house (Baker Hughes, 2017). The oilfield services of Baker Hughes are currently
forecasted to rank after only Schlumberger in the sense of market value. It is chosen as it has
selected as responsible oilfield service provider, as it is significantly considering the
environmental and safety concerns. By its exclusive and specific services, it is gaining
significant competitive advantage over its competitors. The above-mentioned are the reasons and
justifications behind choosing this organization. The primary reason is advanced technologies
and systems, which have been adopted by Baker Hughes to provide innovative solutions to
General Electric and other gas and oil organizations (Zott, Amit and Massa, 2011). There are
some examples of oil and gas sector companies, which are availing services from this oilfield
service provider, like; General Electric, Schlumberger etc. The examples for oil and gas drilling
fluids include Newpark, Aquaness and Milchem.

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Challenges Faced by Baker Hughes Oilfield Service
With the growth of oilfield service providers, the companies are facing more risks and challenges
in the country. There may be some issues, like; low oil price environment that may quicken that
industry trend and directing the oil and gas companies in new mergers and partnerships, via
which the company is sharing the risks and challenges and optimize the delivery of projects. The
oil and gas industry is very much diverse and made of different firms, like; International oil
companies, National oil companies and oilfield service providers (Anis & Siddiqui, 2015). The
organizations in the oilfield service providers are known as the workhorses of oil and gas
industry. Drop in the oil prices between the period of 2014 and 2016, these service providers also
confronted under decreasing profits because of problems facing their customers, cut in prices and
unsettled business atmosphere. The entities in the sector of oilfield service provider need to
rethink and be adaptive in their strategies and business models and alternatives, which they made
after thinking about the future (Chamberlin, 2017).
Like other oilfield service providers, Bakers Hughes is also facing various challenges in this
competitive business environment. There are various external factors that are influencing the
developments in the sector. The major issue that is face by the organization is the oilfield water
challenges. Under this challenge, it can be stated that oilfield water contains some contaminants,
like; iron sulfide, bacteria and hydrogen sulfide, which can affect the quality of ingredients and
equipment that will be delivered to the oil and gas sector company (DesJardins and McCall,
2014). If the company keeps it untreated, it is raising various problems, like; destroying the
wellbore and limiting the flow of production. This is the major reason that is affecting the
revenues and sales of the company as oil and gas entities are facing issues in their oil
manufacturing and exploration activities.
The pipelines of the companies are based in underground, which is raising environmental issues.
The companies are responsible for the handling the land and left it without cleaning. According
to the Baker Hughes’s financial results of 2017, its revenues decreased mostly due to reduction
in the upstream spending in the global offshore projects, weaknesses in the pricing in
international revenues and sales and loss of revenues from one of its business, i.e. pressure
pumping segment (Hill, Jones and Schilling, 2014). In addition, the company is intense
competition in the industry, as the number of players is increasing. New organizations are

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enhancing their business operations by incorporating new and advanced technologies in its tools
and equipment.
According to the data of energy institute, the performance of the oilfield service provider is fully
relied upon the pricing policy of government. It is affecting the business of Baker Hughes and
also the oil and gas organizations, which are availing the oilfield services of Baker Hughes. It
involved a major risk for foreign direct investment and raised the problems of bargaining power
(Kennedy, 2016). Along with this, labor could become a major challenge as pressure-pumping
gear up for the recovery, Baker Hughes said in the reports of results in 2016-2017. The labor
market is very much tight and the organization thinks that it will be considerable restraint in
bringing extra capacity back in the services. For the company, last year was the most daunting
ever for the American oilfield service providers (Kiany, Rahimi & Jokar, 2015).
As discussed above, the oilfield services of Baker Hughes are totally based on the technology
and digital systems, the company has confronted the issues related to technology. It has
implemented the advanced technology, but there was lack of staff and technology experts to
handle systems. It affected the business operations and delivery of services to their partners in oil
and gas sector. In addition, the organization faced the challenges related to organizational and
logistical processes. Handling these challenges is very important for the organization to manage
the growth (Kelland, 2014). There should be effective management of capital projects. In the
year 2016, the company has made efforts to cut the costs that had various safety and health
implications and deteriorated the quality and standards of services and machinery. One of the
major challenges is to make innovations and get it around enhancing a manufacturing mindset. In
today’s competitive business environment, the organizations are coming with new and
innovative techniques for offering oilfield services. They are using advanced technologies and
new techniques and software for managing the service delivery. It affected the sales and
revenues of Baker Hughes in duration of past few years (Kun & Jian, 2011).
It is also considered that business organization is operating its business under changing societies,
so it needs to develop the services according to diverse qualities, standards etc. The code of
conduct of partner companies is also posing challenges to the organization. For example, General
Electric has different laws and policies for operating its business from Baker Hughes, so it
created issues for the company in delivering the oilfield services (Mitchell, Marcel and Mitchell,

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2012). There was the shift in control over the resources, which had fundamental impact on the
oilfield service sector’s customer base as more as more development and exploration activities
are being assumed directly by the oil companies on national level. Apart from the above
challenges, the price collapse also has a large impact on the growth of organization. During last
few years, there was a dramatic collapse in the prices of oil. Capital investment budgets have
reduced by more than 10 percent and it forced the oil field service provider to handle the brunt of
decreased manufacturing activity in the lost business (Mitchell and Mitchell, 2014). For
example, the impact of price collapse cause the oilfield service providers to loss $210 billion and
approximately one-third of their market-capitalization. The companies in the industry have some
major pricing concerns, which threatened the growth and survival of the oilfield service
providers (Yusuf, et al, 2014). In this era, Baker Hughes has faced loss of profit margins in terms
of labor, development, costs of raw materials, costs of projects, synergy and targets etc.
The investments in the oil and gas sector in recovery will shift in the future. New and innovative
systems will fall of the upstream side to midstream area, petrochemical areas, and refinery
processes. In the oil and gas industry, upstream operators will focus on gathering the funds from
mergers and acquisitions by developing more dynamic and productive business operations
(Osinovskaya & Andronova, 2017). The oilfield service providers are very much beneficial for
the oil and gas sector companies. They assist the organizations in generating more revenues and
maximizing the sales of these companies. But these certain threats are affecting the business of
oil and gas industry, which is not good for the growth of organizations. The organizations in the
industry are going global and adopting technological advancements to deal with the above-
mentioned challenges and risks. To overcome these challenges, the firms need to adopt some
effective strategies and market tactics for enhancing their brand image in the industry and
recover the losses due to above-mentioned challenges and risks (Shuen, Feiler and Teece, 2014).
Thus, it can be stated that oil field service providers are obviously confronting difficult time from
last few years. It made worse the business of these organizations. These companies were not able
to protect themselves from the decrease in profit margins. These changes in the prices and
project costs lead the organization to major business loss (Teka, 2012). Under the given
situations, survival of oilfield companies will include great diligence by considering major
strategic factors of business that consists of pricing and innovative contracting, portfolio

OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY 8
justification and effective service delivery and cost management by looking at the profit margins.
The organizations, which are going to change and adopt current market conditions and trends,
would recover these challenges and issues with significant growth.
Recommendations
To deal with these challenges, Baker Hughes should adopt some specific strategies for improving
the strategic direction. To overcome the water challenges, the organization needs to rely on the
oil-field chemistry experience, proficiency in adopting new technology, research and sector-
directing the knowledge about the reservoir. By implementing a systematic method, the company
can manage the integrity of its well and reuse water economically. It leads to effective utilization
of resources, enhanced manufacturing and production and increased economic life of company’s
assets for its coming future. These oilfield service providers must offer the equipment,
infrastructure, intellectual property and services, which are required by global oil and gas sector
to extract, explore for and transport oil and natural gas from the land to the refinery and finally to
the customers.
In order to improve the strategic directions, Baker Hughes is required to develop some training
and development programs. It will assist the organization in managing the issues related to labor
turnover and labor market. It should analyze the market, so that it can understand the market
trends and requirements of organizations in oil and gas sector. Considering the market trends will
lead the organization towards significant growth and success in the future. It will enhance the
revenues and maximize the sales of organization. In addition, it is recommended that Baker
Hughes should focus on managing its assets and properties. The firm should be engaged in social
and environment friendly activities, so that it can attract the people towards its services.
Furthermore, the firm should consider norms, regulations and restrictions, which are regulated on
the emission of environmental pollutants, as they can affect the environment, people, plants and
other living things. There should be consideration of health and safety standards and policies by
taking some specific initiatives. Adopting these processes and strategies will enhance the
strategic directions for Baker Hughes in this difficult period. Improving these strategic directions
will enhance the brand image and good will of Baker Hughes among society. Baker Hughes
should consider the above-mentioned recommendations to overcome the associated challenges in
oil-field service providers.

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Conclusion
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that oilfield service providers are facing various
challenges in today‘s oil and gas industry. In United States, oil and gas industry is one of the
great revenue generators, which have various leading players. Baker Hughes is one of the well-
established oilfield service providers that is offering its services to the General Electric any some
other partners in oil and gas sector. The industry is facing various challenges, which affected the
financial performance of the company in last 2 or 3 years. The report includes the justification
regarding the selection of Baker Hughes for this discussion. After discussing the challenges,
there are some recommendations, which are given to improve the performance and strategic
direction of the company. The organization should follow these recommendations to cover a
significant market share in oil and gas industry in United States.

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https://www.intelligenthq.com/latest-news/top-10-challenges-in-oil-and-gas-industry-in-2012/.
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