There has been no shortage of economic adversity over the past few years, and the oil, gas, and energy sectors have been some of the hardest hit. Just as the world seemed to be entering a post-pandemic world of new normalcy, the conflict in Ukraine upended these three industries in ways that have still not been completely realized or analyzed.
These challenges have made one thing abundantly clear: the cloud imperative for oil, gas, and energy companies is bigger than ever.
From compliance to process improvement to supply chain management to informed strategic decision making and more, the cloud is not only powering more agile organizations but helping them achieve growth even amidst continued uncertainty.
In this article, we’ll explore five reasons why the time is now for oil, gas, and energy companies to modernize with cloud.
Quick Takeaways
- More than 90% of enterprises are investing in new strategies to combat supply chain disruption in the future — all of which can be enhanced by the cloud.
- Industrial companies like those in the oil, gas, and energy industries can unlock revenue growth and margin expansions with cloud-powered operations.
- Cloud-supported IoT has transformative use cases like remote equipment monitoring and optimized asset management.
- The cloud makes oil, gas, and energy companies more agile and able to navigate continued economic uncertainty.
5 Reasons Oil, Gas, and Energy Companies Should Modernize to the Cloud
#1: Supply chain visibility
Supply chains have faced unprecedented disruption over the past few years. McKinsey recently conducted a survey that found nearly every respondent has experienced some sort of supply chain disruption over the past year, and most have implemented new supply chain strategies to combat future disruptions.
The cloud powers the successful implementation of these solutions. While navigating supply chain challenges prevalent right now (for example rising costs of commodities and continued labor shortages), running systems on the cloud can provide greater agility, opportunities to modernize while reducing cost, along with cloud native tooling from hyperscalers to add value up the stack.
This is especially critical for oil, gas, and energy companies as ongoing conflicts between Ukraine and Russia and surrounding areas cause continued uncertainty across these industries.
#2: Enhanced processes
Cloud-powered visibility extends to optimizing processes across the industrial processes your oil, gas, or energy company executes. McKinsey reports that for industrial companies specifically, cloud-enabled operations can unlock $1 trillion in shareholder value — half revenue growth and half margin expansion.
These kinds of revenue growth and cost savings opportunities can’t be ignored and apply directly to oil, gas, and energy companies operating global, complex operations. Those that fail to get on board with cloud modernization will likely fall behind competitors in years to come. Here is one example of a ‘quick win’ that adds immediate value enabled by continuous improvement.
#3: Compliance improvements
Compliance regulations and standards for oil, gas, and energy are complex and ever-changing. The EPA, OPEC, and FERC are just a few of many organizations conducting oversight and enforcing standards in these industries. Coupled with decentralized operations, it’s harder than ever for companies to monitor compliance, identify potential issues, and be proactive about addressing them.
With centralized data, reporting, and digital operations happening on the cloud, organizations can keep their compliance data in one place, enabling them to continually stay aligned with evolving standards and educate employees and stakeholders about how to keep it that way.
#4: The power of IoT
IoT devices are changing the oil, gas, and energy (as they are in just about every industry) with transformative use cases such as:
- Remote inspections - Inspect sites remotely with drones and other IoT equipment.
- Sensor-based monitoring - Monitor equipment with sensor-fed data dashboards.
- Supply chain tracking - Get real-time updates to keep end clients informed and happy.
- Asset management - Leverage data for risk assessment and asset planning.
- Acoustic operations modeling - Analyze oil composition, field conditions, and more with remote sensors.
Deloitte covers some of these use cases in greater detail, but the point as it relates to cloud modernization and IoT for oil, gas, and energy is this: IoT is a critical capability for modern enterprises, and it’s most effectively implemented when backed by a fully modernized cloud environment.
#5: Agility and scalability
It’s imperative today that companies are able to make quick decisions with real-time insights. In industries as complex and the oil, gas, and energy are today, this has become nearly impossible without the support of the cloud. Cloud enabled capabilities include:
- The ability to store, mine, and pull insights from massive datasets
- Real-time reporting so that decision making can align with the speed of business
- The ability to centralize data and communicate across locations in real-time
- Frequent reporting and supply chain updates to meet elevated client expectations
The only thing that seems certain is that uncertainty — inflation and a pending recession mean oil, gas, and energy companies will be navigating an especially challenging time for the foreseeable future.
The cloud won’t eliminate these challenges, but it can make it possible for companies to navigate while still achieving growth to remain competitive.
Protera is a pioneer and leader in SAP cloud modernization — we help companies maximize their investment in SAP and mission-critical applications across the business while shifting focus to value-add projects up the stack.
Why Protera is the Best Partner for Oil, Gas, and Energy Companies Modernizing with Cloud
Protera’s solutions are designed to meet the complex business needs and rate of change that companies in the oil, gas, and energy sectors need to achieve in today’s business environment.
With Protera as your SAP modernization partner, you’ll experience:
- Financial Governance - Real time dashboard of cloud costs and continuous monitoring of potential cost reduction and budget reallocation opportunities.
- Data Security - Data intelligence and 24/7 security and monitoring to unearth insights as well as protect every layer of your company and data.
- Operational Scale - Managed IT services team that manages, deploys, and backs up your enterprise assets so you can focus on projects up the stack.
- Automation Experts - Fully integrated SAP and enterprise technology solutions driven by automation reduce risk and accelerate time to value.
- Continuous Improvement - Embedded across Protera’s application and cloud-managed services model.
Learn more about SAP Cloud Modernization with Protera and schedule your virtual solutioning session today.