Oil and gas companies have experienced significant disruption over the last 24 months. External pressures from COVID, tightened greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations, and public perception are impacting operational efficiency, productivity, predictability, and profitability.

As a result, the industry is racing to update operating practices, pivoting to modern business practices, and accelerating digital transformation.

Living in the wake of trends has already proven detrimental. It’s time to look ahead and reap the benefits that modern technologies offer. Here are five things to consider when evaluating your digital maturity in 2022.

#1 Expanding Skills Training and Employee Empowerment Programs

2020 was one of the most disruptive times in the history of oil and gas. Now, as demand and prices recover around the world, the impact of those decisions has left companies scrambling to find, hire, train, and keep talent.

43% of workers want to leave the energy industry altogether within the next five years. 10% of companies are hiring retirees to fill the gaps, according to a report by recruitment firm Brunel and OilandGasJobSearch.com.

In 2019 Gallup analyzed the differences in performance between engaged and disengaged business units. It found that those in the top 25% of employee engagement, significantly outperformed those in the bottom 25%. Findings include:

  • 41% lower absenteeism
  • 24% less turnover (in high-turnover organizations)
  • 59% less turnover (in low-turnover organizations)
  • 10% higher customer ratings
  • 17% higher productivity
  • 20% higher sales
  • 21% higher profitability

Clearly, employee experience and engagement have positive productivity and profitability impacts. You can no longer ignore them. Employee experience platforms (EXPs) deliver a channel to guide, speak to, and listen to employees. After all, everyone likes being heard.

  • Investments in employee experience platforms improve knowledge transfer between employees exiting and entering the workforce.
  • EXPs improve onboarding efficiency. 
  • EXPs eliminate silos and improve company culture and communication.

Can your employee experience use a boost?

  • Replace your antiquated intranet portal with a modern digital workplace that is tailored to employees. 
  • Pivot away from tedious annual surveys. Instead, empower your employees with access to data, real-time feedback loops, and candid conversations. Listening is key to any productive relationship.

#2 Accelerating Benefits of Digital Transformation

In 2022, the convergence of technology and business strategy will continue to play a vital role in CIO decision-making and productivity. 85% of CIOs in the oil and gas industry have assumed responsibility for creating a change-enabling technical platform and 79% are working to build a stronger change leadership culture in IT, according to Gartner.

A recent Gartner survey of more than 2,000 CIOs found that IT budgets are expected to grow globally at the fastest rate in over ten years with an average growth of 3.6% in overall IT budget for 2022. The report emphasized the importance for enterprises to embrace business composability, defining it as "the mindset, technologies, and set of operating capabilities that enable organizations to innovate and adapt quickly to changing business needs."

From culture shifts, to data-driven decision-making and digital twins, expect energy companies to continue investing heavily in digital transformation. If you’re lagging in this area, you’re making a critical mistake.

#3 Increasing Productivity While Reducing Technical Debt

Working smarter, not harder is the name of the game in 2022. This includes everything from eliminating silos and technical debt to improving search ability across platforms.. Here are a few recommendations you should consider in 2022:

  • Federated search solutions that allow users to query information across many data sources at once, saving employees time and your business money. Imagine the savings if you could cut 30 minutes per week (or month), per employee by making information more accessible and easier to find. Depending on the size of your organization, this could equate to thousands of hours per year in gained productivity.
  • Personalized web apps and dashboards that increase project visibility, reduce meetings, and boost productivity.

#4 Eliminating Vendor Lock-in with MACH Architectures

What are the chances that a single vendor has the best CMS, DAM, PIM, CRM, commerce platform, community platform, and analytics? Zero.

With monolithic platforms you run the risk of locking yourself into limited capabilities, and slowing release cycles.

It’s shameful how many enterprise businesses still buy suites of products (example: Adobe). I’ve heard first-hand from product owners and developers alike that they’ve wasted millions of dollars struggling to ramp up and learn it. They integrate for months (sometimes years), realize the suite is not what they expected, rip it out, and start all over. Beware.

Vendor lock-in should be a thing of the past. You own your destiny and should not be beholden to someone else's product roadmap. The days of “no one gets fired for hiring IBM” (or Adobe) are behind us. Leaders are investing in open, best of breed solutions that best match their business strategy.

MACH architectures offer a flexible, best-of-breed approach that has proven to be more efficient, reduce costs, and help to future-proof your tech stack.

So, what is a MACH architecture? It’s important to understand that MACH is not a technology as much as a state of mind. As you begin planning your platform architecture, consider:

  • Microservices that replace the traditional, monolithic architecture. Microservices offer loosely coupled and independently deployable services that serve a specific business function. 
  • An API-first framework, making it possible for two or more applications or services to interact.
  • Cloud-native leverages software-as-a-service (SaaS) to store, host, scale, and update functionality.
  • A headless approach that decouples the frontend presentation experience from backend logic. You'll gain freedom and flexibility.

Benefits include:

  • Rapid prototyping and speed to market
  • Separation of concerns and improved focus by offering a composable environment
  • Architecting stacks, not suites

#5 Asset Management

One of the largest expenses for oil and gas companies are the assets used in production. Production is a significant cost, but also has huge potential for increasing revenues. Oil and gas companies must find more productive ways to manage assets for production and predictability.

  • Automation is increasing cost savings and efficiencies in oil and gas. For example, automating maintenance schedules will ensure that assets are proactively serviced and downtimes are predictable.
  • From drones to IoT sensors, consider updating your asset management strategy with modern technology.

Outcomes include:

  • Increasing oil and gas productivity
  • Improving compliance and safety

Oil and gas companies can no longer ignore the significant benefits of digital transformation. It’s time to future-proof your platforms, work smarter, and protect your investment. There are going to be clear winners and losers in the world of oil and gas. Winners are rethinking digital opportunities and positioning themselves for tomorrow.

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