The  Gulf  Coast  oil  spill  disaster  not  only  resulted  in  oil  and  tar  balls washing up on local beaches but contributed to the evaporation of the wedding business on the beach. In one family business,  85  percent  of  the  business  and  $90,000  cash  were  lost  while they only received $20,000 in emergency payments. A year  later,  resentful  wedding  business  owners  are  still  living  day  to  day.  They  contend  that  British  Petroleum  (BP),  which  owned  the  Deep water  Horizon  oil  rig  where  the  explosion  and  subsequent  leak  occurred,  has  not  fulfilled  its  obligations  to  them  and  their  true  losses  won’t  ever  be  recovered.  With  government  intervention, the $20 billion fund established by BP has only paid out $3.8  billion. Government attorney, Kenneth Feinberg, emphasizes that  200,000 claimants have been compensated in nine months.
Be prepared to discuss the following concepts and questions in class:
Concepts
■ The external environment
■ External environmental analysis
■ Five forces of competition
■ Strategic groups
■ Competitor analysis

Questions
1. What  external  environment  (general,  industry,  and  competitive) segments do you think BP considered or didn’t consider  prior to their drilling off the Gulf Coast? What should the wed- ding  business  owners  now  consider  in  their  external  environment?
2. How should BP have handled an external environmental analysis  and  what  environmental  changes  and  trends  (opportunities and threats) might they have discovered?
3. Analyze  BP  using  the  five  forces  of  competition  model  to  determine  the  industry’s  current  attractiveness  in  terms  of  profit potential.
4. Who might be in BP’s strategic group and why?
5. What  would  a  competitor  of  BP  now  discover  about  them  in a competitor analysis?