MSc Procurement: Personal Development for Leaders PSLE7006 Portfolio

This portfolio, submitted for the PSLE7006 Personal Development for Leaders module within the MSc Procurement and Supply Chain Management program, details a student's professional development journey. The portfolio includes a rationale and academic coherence section outlining the program's aims and learning outcomes, followed by a review of the student's occupation as a Maintenance Supervisor at Royal Dutch Shell, UK, including an industry overview and SWOT analysis of the company. The document discusses the downstream oil and gas sector, the student's responsibilities, and the company's strengths and weaknesses, including its vertically integrated operations and challenges related to human rights and environmental concerns. The analysis incorporates theoretical frameworks like the OCEAN model and John Stacey Adams' equity theory to assess job compatibility and employee motivation.

Personal Development for Leaders PSLE7006
Portfoliofor
MSc Procurement and Supply Chain Management
FOR SUBMISSION
Note: This portfolio incorporates the review of your Occupation, Profession and Organisation (if
applicable). It encourages the audit of transferable skills and mapping across your industry competencies.
Name
Student Number
Indicate with a  in the appropriate box
Are you currently employed? Yes No
If yes, what is your job title? Maintenance Supervisor, Royal Dutch Shell, UK.
Your Programme Structure
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2

PG Cert
phase
credits
Semester How acquired/chosen module
20 Personal Development for Leaders (Core)
20 Global Supply Chain Management(Core)
20 Financial Management for Purchasers (Core)
PG Dip
phase
credits
Semester How acquired/chosen module
20 Strategic Procurement Management (Core)
20 Research Skills and Consultancy Planning (Core)
20 Legal and Contracting Arrangements in Purchasing (Core)
Masters
phase
credits
Semester The following modules are all elective choices
Option 1
20 Advanced Logistics and Supply Chain Systems
20 Business Analysis and Project Management
20 Business Strategy and Transportation Technologies
Resourcing and Assessing Talent
Option 2
40 Consultancy Project
40 Dissertation
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Section 2: Rationale and Academic Coherence
1. Programme aim
The primary aim of this program is to develop the foundation of the future sustained professional development ventures of the
student, deriving resources from the postgraduate study of the student. By synthesising aims and objectives for personal as well as
career development, I will attempt to set personal learning outcomes for my development plan. While conducting this program, I
also aim to identify as well as nurture my career goals as an employee of the downstream oil and gas sector, based on personal
development of knowledge, professional interests as well as industrial skills gained. By developing a sound understanding of
theory as well as practice related to WBL, this program will allow me to capitulate on continuing provisional development,
thereby developing scope of creating new knowledge as well as practices.
2. Programme learning outcomes. Used numbered bullets – no more than 10.
On completion of my programme I will be able to:
1. Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of my professional designation including my job roles as well as
responsibilities.
2. I will be able to apprehend how my job role will impact the organisation in context to the structure, interactions, origin as
well as the outside drivers along with critical understanding and demonstration of the current trends as well as issues.
3. Explore as well as evaluate the critical models for professional development by referring to extensive information related
to current practice
4. Demonstrate research work related with large range of professionals as well as disciplines.
5. Demonstrate strategies of application of the models and other frameworks for personal as well as organisational
development needs.
6. Demonstrate ability of individual learning that is necessary for providing self-direction of continued professional
development.
7. Demonstrate originality of effort in tackling as well as solving problems.
8. Able to act autonomously for planning as well as implementation of tasks at a professional or at an equivalent level.
9. Incorporate a wide range of activities for self development by conducting wide range of intensive programs through
lectures, tutorials as well as workshops.
10. Exhibit the capability of conducting structured activities like assessment preparation as well as self directed study.
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3. Review of (preferred) occupation, profession, organisation and the industry it sits within.
I am occupied in the downstream oil and gas sector, which is the most varied part in the oil and gas process of the whole
petroleum industry. The primary works in the downstream oil and gas sector involves crude oil refining as well as processing,
purification of natural gas, product distribution, product retail, marketing, through to sales and other allied activities. The
deliverables of this industrial sector also includes manufacturing petrochemicals as well as plastics.
The crude oil products derived or manufactured for the downstream stage includes liquefied petroleum gas, antifreeze
pharmaceuticals, diesel oil, petrol, LPG, fertilisers as well as cosmetics.
The downstream sector is responsible for providing closest connection with the everyday consumers. This implies that the job
roles in this sector are incredibly sought after as well as diverse. In this case, I should consider the OCEAN model in order to tally
compatibility with my current job roles at the organisation. In this regard, it deserves mention that since there have been exhibiting
traits of openness conscientiousness, I feel that I am most empowered to deal with job roles like retail, product marketing and
dealing with dynamic customer base.
Other than being a lucrative area for working, the downstream oil and gas sector of the petroleum industry has the most lucrative
opportunities of personal development as an employee also. My expected average salary that I will be getting after working for a
year is £50000 per annum and the annual hike in this sector is also standard.
Other benefits that I will be able to enjoy working in this sector are flexible working hours, opportunity to travel to various global
locations and fore-mostly develop a dedicated set of skills that would highly in demand among the relevant industries. I hope that
for the individuals who are looking for a career with long term and sustainable growth, along with excellent work environment
and standard pay scale, there can rarely be a better choice compared to the downstream oil and gas sector.
I have been involved in the position of Maintenance Supervisor with The Royal Dutch Shell, UK. My job role involves a set of
significant activities. I am responsible for ensuring safety as well as efficiently maintain a wide range of equipment as well as
machinery. I am also liable for leading a team of specialists in the fields of electrical and mechanical engineers along with the
team of wielders. The participative style of working that I have manifested, helps me to get along with such kinds of working
styles. I have to work with processing equipments in oil processing plant. I am also in charge of a conveyer system. My liabilities
also include management of preventive management schedules as well as planned shutdowns. I have to ensure that the ad hoc
repairs are properly executed for keeping the equipments of the facility run smooth and safely. I feel that I have all necessary
qualities as well as attitude for dealing with the required stakeholders.The main set of my responsibilities include planning and
organisation of on-site as well as off-site work, task distribution among the work groups, and overseeing progress of the tasks.
Lastly, I also work with the senior management team and with other supervisors for accomplishing other work goals like team
building, motivating individual employees as well as solving problems for achieving better results.
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The company is one of the leading providers of services in the downstream oil and gas sector of UK. The company have 500
facilities all over UK with their head office in Hague, Netherlands, along with 17 lab facilities also.
SWOT Analysis of Royal Dutch Shell
Strengths
One of the major strengths of the company, where I work, Royal Dutch Shell, UK is their vertically integrated operations. The
operations of my company are spread across three international markets of North America, Europe and Asia. The vertically
integrated growth of our company is ensured by merger and acquisition of the other companies.
Our company serves in three of the major markets of downstream oil sector, namely North America, Asia as well as Europe. IN
the downstream sector, our organisation operates in partnership for the sectors of refining and marketing. For evidence, in the year
1998, we had entered in to a partnership with the Saudi Aramco for delivering refined petroleum in the Asian countries under the
joint venture named Motiva Enterprises. This was a limited liability partnership. This shows that in our downstream sector,
companies can indulge in to joint venturing with limited business risks. The revenue accumulated in the joint venture was worth
$24 billion fiscal policy. We also have some of the largest oil refineries in the North America with capacity of 740,000 barrel
equivalent of oil every day (Shell.com 2019). This helped to enhance the market size and market authority of the company in
America. In turn, it entrusted a need for greater employee base and the salary structure of the executive and managerial employees
like us were also increased. As i have experienced in my service tenure, the business growth of our company is based up on the
two themes of deep water exploration in the upstream sector and the integrated gas supply in the downstream sector. About 15%
of the global demand for energy is met by our downstream sector.
Another major strength of the Royal Dutch Shell is their strong exploration capability. The upstream ventures of our company saw
a dramatic increase in the year 2014, when the business value of the upstream sector rose by 800 million. As an impact the
valuation of the business of the downstream sector also increased by 0.9 billion. This emphasised a subtle requirement for
increasing the business volume of the downstream sector and the need for further employment also. This called for a recruitment
drive and this is the time that I got the opportunity of serving the company (Shell.com 2019).
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Figure 1: Earnings of Shell in the year 2013 and 2014.
(Source: Shell. Plc, 2014)
The dramatic increase in the financial growth of the company helped to maintain relative stability as well as quick ratios. The
amplitude of the current resources of our company helps allows us to easily take care of the short term liabilities of the company
also. Thereby the business shares are concentrated over limited hands. As an impact of this employees like us can enjoy stable
working environment.
Lastly, the strong market position of our company also deserves mention. We have almost one fourth of our employees involved
in the research and development sector, out of which there are 65% employees involved in downstream research. This has helped
us to stay in the forefront of the fuel technology. I remember that I was in the charge of handling one business process of
development of a very advanced fuel which was track tested with the Ferrari F1 model. This product was a boon for the sports
cars that were diesel powered.
Weaknesses
In order to highlight the appropriate employment conditions of my company, it is necessary to discuss the limitations of the form
also. The company have been facing issues in the context of human rights as well as environmental degradation that it has
encountered in the last 36 business months. For evidence we were criticised for the business operations in the Niger Delta region
where one of the biggest oil rigs of our company is located. The carbon output in the Ogoniland was exaggerated and the big oil
spills in the Niger delta severely affected the lives of the Ogoni people who came up to revolt. In this context it deserves mention
that although oil exploration activities are part of the upstream business of our company, the culture of internal sabotage is
predominant here. Again, this in itself is the cause of the big oil spill by the company (Shell.com 2019). This is predominantly a
problem in the African and the Asian business sectors of the business of Royal Dutch Shell. The reason behind this is that there is
severe market competition among the major oil rand of the world in this region. Hence, there are competitive perpetrators who are
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tended to bride the internal managers and the executives so that they neglect their duties and let scams like this occur. In this
context this deserves mention that such loopholes are not present in the downstream sector where I operate. This is because of the
fact that our work involves much more liability and we are directly involved with the domain of client service. In this case I would
like to highlight John Stacey Adams' equity theory of Employee motivation. As per the theory, there is strong need of money and
compensation in the employees. However, there are other factors that determine the motivation level of the employees also. This
is the feeling of fair or advantageous treatment. In the upstream sector there is high instability in the executive job roles. However,
compared to that the treatment that we receive in the downstream sector is more cherish-able. Besides, we feel honoured to able to
directly serve the major clients of the company. That is why the job motivation level among us is very high.
Since, Shell has been involved in scams in the recent times, A culture of corruption has prevailed in the company. This is why I
feel that there is the need of alternating the code of ethics of the company. This will not only be beneficial for the employees of
the upstream sector, but it will also ensure that the employees involved in the downstream sector never involve them in such
criminal acts. 14 employees of the downstream sector were involved in criminal acts like development of fabricated invoices for
the third parties. Hence, new ethical rules are needed to be formed in order to bring more transparency in to the process of
invoicing (Shell.com 2019).
Another major weakness is the scale and the size of the operations of Shell. Because of the large client base and the
operational sphere of the company, there have been acute difficulties in managing the quality as well as standard of the products. I
am directly engaged in the process of inspecting the processes involved in the downstream operations. However, the issue that I
face is that there are third parties involved in this sector also. Lastly, analyzing the operations of the company, it can be analyzed
that the major factors plaguing the business of our company is higher depreciation, weak industry conditions as well as increased
exploration expenses.
Opportunities
Innovation and technology are at the core of the success strategies of Shell. So long I have worked for the company, my managers
have always instructed me to manage the carbon output of the operations and offer warnings to the third party operators also, to
reduce their carbon output. The advanced and self generated technologies that we use in the downstream sector help us to stay
ahead of the major competition in terms of output and quality.
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The success factors of our company
(Source: strategy, 2013)
Shell is intended to share major benefits with the community where they operate by supporting the objectives of the host
government. This is aimed at rendering economic and social benefits that can help the local governments to foster development
for the local areas. The Prelude Floating Energy project that I had also been a part of was aimed at satisfying the local energy
needs of the developing nations at competitive price and easy availability.
The enhancing demand for fuel in the world can also be considered as a great business opportunity for our company. We have
developed LNG as an alternative source of energy for the world. While checking the order supply rate by the other companies in
Europe, I witnessed that no other company have been able to supply alternative fuels in massive volumes like us. Our joint
ventures with Gazprom are another significant business opportunity for the company. Although Gazprom is signed for upstream
activities in collaboration with Shell, their high hydrocarbon yield provides us with ample resources that help us to meet the
clients’ demand easily. I found the Cammon Creek project equally helpful for us our reliable energy output largely depends on the
supplies from this project.
Threats
Government intervention and the change in the environment laws can be considered as big threats for both upstream and the
downstream sector of our company. Another major threat for the company is economic instability that is accountable for a big
drop in our profits. In the refining sector of the company also this issue has had its impact. There have been 23 orders from major
clients cancelled in the last minute. This cost us loss worth 65000 barrel equivalent of oil in all. Terrorism activities in the Middle
East have also caused a setback for us, since this is the biggest cause behind the fluctuation of crude oil prices in the Middle East.
Last major threat of the company is that the market segmentation of the company is occurring at a high rate.
PESTLE Analysis of the downstream Oil and Gas sector of UK (Shell.com 2019)
Political Factors
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The political factors have a key role to play in determining the long term profitability of our market operations. The integrated oil
and gas services comprise the majority of our market operations. We operate in more than 12 countries with limited enterprising.
Although I am experienced with the political environment of UK only, I am aware of the basic challenges that the company faced
from the political factors of other countries. The system risks in the various political contexts of Asia and Africa is very high. The
political stability of the African countries like Nigeria is very high and there are always chances of social or political revolts.
These interrupt the operations of our company and often disrupt our supply as well as delivery networks. As an outcome, the
crude oil from those countries reaches with delay which hampers our production. There is also the risk of military invasion in the
Middle East countries where we have been operating in strategic partnership with the local companies. In fact, Aich and Antusch
(2016), have also assessed that Royal Dutch Shell have very less experience of operating in a VUCA world. The level of
corruption in the Basic Materials sector is very high in UK itself, which is why we face issues in equipment development. The
legal framework for contract enforcement is quite complicated in UK since we do not enjoy the Brexit advantages any more. As
an outcome, many potential clients do not want to provide bulk orders to Shell, UK.
Economic Factors
Several macro environmental factors like high inflation rate, interest rate, economic cycle and the foreign exchange rate
highly influence the business of our company in UK and elsewhere. There are free market conditions in many of the trade areas of
Asia as in China. However, the market factors are highly fluctuating. There have recently been two major employee revolts in the
Asian market because of which the entire UK operations of Shell was engaged in delivering the supplies to the American clients
who were supposed to get their deliverables from the Asian downstream operations. This is why; the company was forced to raise
capitals in the local markets and operating cost increased by 8% in Asia. Another, important economic factor that have been
affecting the business of our company is the high labor cost. The economic growth rate of the company could have been faster if
the wage rate in UK has been 10 to 15% lower. However, the high unemployment rate of the developing nations of Africa and
Asia allows the company to employ local skilled workers at 20 to 30% lower wage rate compared to that in UK. However,
inflation rate is higher here (Shell.com, 2019).
Social Factors
The culture of individual societies where the company operates impacts the brand name as well as business performance of the
company. Shared beliefs as well as attitude of the local population also help the marketers of our company to understand the
nature of demand and the kinds of customers they are handling. The skill level is one of the important factors that differ across
demographics. The skills level of the workers in UK allows them to be incorporated in the mainstream workforce. However, in
spite of having potential skills, the employees of the developing countries (with lower wage rate) need linguistic and professional
training so that they can be absorbed in the mainstream workforce. There social conventions regarding gender specific roles in
many countries with VUCA environment. The aspect of CSR also needs to be considered under the social factors. Health and
environmental aspects needs to be considered when working in the African countries only. There is also the pressure of the local
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government to provide oil and gas to the local people under subsidized price. Hence, we have to increase our production in order
to meet the local demands for oil and gas under subsidized price is always high (Shell.com 2019).
Technological Factors
Technological factors are one of essential factors that affect industries in the oil and gas sector. The impact of the
transportation industry is one of the important aspects to consider. The transportation costs are gradually becoming higher which
is forcing us to raise the prices of our finished products. The new refineries that have developed in our labs are able to deliver 240
more barrel equivalent of oil every 3 hours. However, this involves automated technology that utilizes extra fuel cost also. As an
outcome, we have to incorporate more demand to meet up with our production cost.
4. Audit of transferable skills.
(Here you should explore and audit the transferable skills you have. What practices, knowledge and general skills do you have
that you use effectively within your workplace setting? You will need to provide support from literature to help you identify your
skills and their value and from experience to help you support your claim’s authenticity. You may provide appendices that contain
material evidence such as email, testimonials, feedback for examples of practice or achievement.)
I have adopted the Self Management Learning method for assessment of my learning as well as personal development. This is a
method by which the employees learn individual skills in different ways. I am an employee who has to work under diversified
working environment. As highlighted by Lin et al. (2016), this helps an employee to find ways in which he or she can find the
strategies to sustain in a global workplace setting. Blount and Mullen (2015), further highlights that SML is a holistic approach,
that helps individual learners to strengthen their values towards their job.
The blueprint of the SML approach that I am following for my personal development is as follows:
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Figure 3: Self Development Management program that I am following for my career development
(Source: Developed by the Researcher)
The learning contract phase helped me to understand the personal development needs based on which the development
criteria would be determined. The next stage is as demonstrated; mapping the context of the program, indulge in to diagnostic
activities as well as setting of the career goals and finally the strategy for organisational involvement.
The other phase of the management plan will be constituted of working up on individual contract goals that will help me indulge
in to various activities in order to be settle myself with my workplace needs.
Benefits of self managed learning for individuals
An individual can work easily towards fulfilment of personal work goals. Working in a team an individual gains different kinds of
knowledge that helps him or her to develop their presentation skills. The SML approaches have personally helped me to amend
my mistakes in the management approaches that I undertake and thereby undertake proper decision. I have realized through time
that the perception of the individual employees towards their organization is different. That is why it is not possible to satisfy the
personal as well as professional development needs of every individual employee. On the contrary, I feel that there is the need to
identify some intrinsic motivational strategy that can produce confident employees.
Strategies for lifelong personal and professional learning
I know that the internal atmosphere of the organization is changing dynamically. That is why the managerial needs of the
organization are also alternating. In order to achieve that, I need to engage in to lifelong learning so that I can constantly update
my management skills. In order to gain knowledge about how to manage operations and supervise employees parallely, I have
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