Data Consolidation: The First Step on Your Digital E&P Journey
The primary aim of digital technology adoption is to transform legacy business models, create new revenue streams, and transition from an analog business to a digital one. This is digitalization in a nutshell. According to Gartner, digitalization is the use of digital technologies to change business models and generate new value-producing opportunities. In its most basic form, I would add, digitalization involves improving work processes through digital solutions.
For the E&P sector specifically, digital technologies promise to drive faster and better decision-making and shorter time to oil and gas. Research from consultancy firm McKinsey reveals that the oil and gas industry can leverage digital technologies to reduce capital expenditures by up to 20 percent and cut operating costs in upstream by 3 to 5 percent.
Digitalization has a clear business value if it is done right. And data consolidation is the first step towards successful digitalization. When you know what data you have at your disposal, finding new technology to increase business value becomes easier.
What is Data Consolidation?
Data has the potential to grow and transform businesses, but only if it is transformed into a usable and valuable entity that can drive profitable activity. And to drive profitable activity, data from different data sources need to be correlated and combined. This is what data consolidation is all about – collecting and integrating data from multiple sources into a single destination.
The primary purpose of data consolidation is to break down information silos and to make data more accessible. As the volume of data increases, the number of different storage locations and repositories grows. If these storage locations are disconnected, accessing and analyzing data becomes more difficult.
One survey by M-Files reveals that 48 percent of respondents regularly find it difficult to locate the correct information because of multiple systems and storage locations. The same survey shows that 85 percent would feel their job was easier if they could quickly find and access data and information without worrying about where it was stored.
Data consolidation, then, is the process of putting all relevant company data in one integrated place, in a single data store. This process enables users to access and analyze data from various sources quickly and reduces inefficiencies and costs related to data duplication, managing multiple databases, and the like.
Getting Started with Data Consolidation in the E&P Industry
Upstream oil and gas have, for a long time, relied on legacy technology and infrastructure, making it challenging to analyze and interpret large volumes of data. Traditionally, IT systems have been built to provide solutions for individual functions across the value chain. They are often based on legacy software applications that are bought from different vendors and are unable to communicate well with each other. This creates an inflexible system architecture and makes it challenging to access any underlying data.
To overcome these obstacles and to leverage digital solutions for improved work processes, E&P companies should centralize their data in a single system. To get there, start with identifying all relevant data sources needed to improve specific work processes and QC the data to track lineage and to avoid duplication. Then, determine how and where the data should be consolidated. One cost-efficient option is to consolidate data in the cloud. Today, E&P companies can centralize data in a cloud-based solution to increase flexibility, enable cross-domain collaboration, and reduce inefficiencies.
Data Consolidation with Cetegra
Cegal’s E&P solution Cetegra is a vendor-neutral cloud solution aiming to increase digitalization and improve collaboration in the oil and gas industry. Functioning as a “digitalization hub,” since ExxonMobil pioneered the 3D seismic allows E&P companies to consolidate their data from different data sources and multiple locations and provide users with access to data and applications from any device and any location.
Data consolidation through Cetegra enables both cross-country collaboration and increased availability and accessibility. After consolidating your data, Cetegra also allows users to leverage new digital tools and software for increased automation capabilities and increased efficiency.
Please get in touch with us if you would like to learn more about Cetegra and how it can kickstart your organization’s digitalization efforts.
