Business strategy and the future in a time of system change in energy and information

A two-day executive course on emerging trends vital to strategy formulation in 2017-2020.

Hever Castle, Kent, UK: 2017, dates to be determined

Meeting energy demand underpins every aspect of the global economy. And the global energy system is undergoing a total system change before our eyes.

Disruptive technologies, strategies, and companies are leaping to prominence.  Yet bankruptcies are everywhere. In parallel, the information revolution is changing the business landscape even faster than the energy transition. It has yet to manifest itself much in the energy transition. When it does the opportunities for exponential impacts and the risk of investment graveyards both compound.

Meanwhile fundamental changes are brewing in capital markets. Geopolitics and societal change add potent ingredients to this new spectrum of risk and opportunity.

What to make of it all? How to factor the compound narrative of new energy and information into the betting inherent in business strategy? This course aims to provide one of the world’s best possible introductions, over two full days.

Location

heverhever-hallLess than 500 years ago, a tyrannical national leader frequented Hever Castle while courting  a young woman he would later marry, then subject to judicial murder (Henry 8th and Anne Boleyn). This is a fascinating setting to briefly contemplate the distant past, to fully survey the recent past, and move on to consider what will be a fast moving future.
 
seminar-room2Hever is a place of beauty in any season. Participants able to arrive early, stay late, or get up early during the course, will be able to enjoy the best of English Wealden countryside and will be amazed at how thinly populated it is, over such a large area, so close to London.
Access: Gatwick 30 minutes by car, Heathrow 60 minutes by car, trains 50 minutes London bridge to Hever.

Agenda

1. History, mind, and future: bedrock of business strategy

Twenty-first century business strategy in the context of a brief history of humankind. The human mind: lessons from the explosion of understanding in neuroscience, pyschology, and anthropology in recent years, and how they might be usefully applied in business strategy and tactics. Learnings relevant to widely-admitted failings in the business world, and particular opportunities, including scope for societal renaissance.

2. Policy, society, capital and climate

The state of policy and societal response to environmental degradation, emphasising the role of business, with particular reference to climate. Relevant emerging trends in capital markets. Stranded-asset risk and its implications for the business world.

3. Disruption: winners, losers, and movers

The state of disruptive technologies in energy and information markets. Impacts, current and future, on the energy industry and the wider business world.

4. The state and fate of the oil and gas industry

Dependency on oil and gas, and state of play in the energy incumbency. The history and prospects of the shale boom in the US. The oil and gas industry’s debt mountain: history, prognosis, threats and opportunities. Is the oil industry’s move to gas a sustainable route to profit, and what does it mean for other businesses? The increasing involvement of the legal system in energy: status and prognosis.

5. Visions and missions in an unstable world

Global, national, local and scenarios for 2035. Visions of a zero carbon world in governments, states, cities, communities and companies: status and prospects. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals: status and prospects. Relevance of these visions and goals to the business world. The overlay of geopolitics and security. Guesstimating the outcome: the basis for sustainable strategy.

6. Discussion

Early registrants have requested plentiful time for consideration of their own case histories and experiences in the light of the programme. The agenda for the final three sessions, accordingly, will be drafted nearer the time of the course.

Interest to date

Companies and organisations planning or recommending senior attendance to date span the accountancy / audit, asset management, data and information services, engineering, offshore technology, oil and gas, renewables, retail, and wealth fund sectors.

Fee

£2,745 fully inclusive of all course materials including start of the art animated presentations (for use only with immediate teams please), accommodation and sessions in the Astor Wing attached to the castle, and meals including the dining experience in the Great Hall in the castle.
The course materials (supplied on USB) will include PowerPoint slides using abundant images, animated graphics and source urls from each presentation.  Some themes in the talks will span more slides than can be presented in the time available, and these extra slides will be part of the course materials. Each slide will be viewable in parallel with original sources captured  in full on Evernote (more than 2,500 entries) wherein the most important passages are highlighted. In short, the course materials will be an unprecedented resource for strategy-formulation support.
Maximum 24 attendees to ensure optimum use of space and involvement in discussion.

Logistics

Day before
Option to arrive the evening before: late evening or in time for dinner at 7.
Day One
10 am start to allow early-morning travel down from London, 6 pm finish.
6.30 Cocktail party followed by dinner in the Great Hall of Hever Castle.
Day Two
9 am start, 5 pm finish.
Depart for evening trains / planes from Gatwick (30 mins) and Heathrow (60 mins).

Also available: bespoke corporate courses

The same or an abridged version of the course can also be provided for individual companies or organisations.

Enquiries

Please e-mail jeremy.leggett@solarcentury.com