Oil and gas sector believes time is right for social networking
1 min read
No fewer than 40% of oil and gas professionals believe that social networking sites would boost productivity – yet only one in four report using such tools to capture and share information internally.
That’s among key findings of a study, released by Microsoft and Accenture at the Microsoft Global Energy Forum 2009. They also found 61% of engineers, geoscientists and managers worldwide stating that they spend at least one hour each working day searching for information and knowledge sources.
Unsurprisingly, 70% believe that collaboration tools would drive revenue, cut costs and contribute to health and safety – but the vast majority still admit to using older means, such as meetings, emails and conference calls.
Microsoft and Accenture draw the conclusion that, with 65,000 engineering professionals in the oil and gas industry, there’s a potential loss of almost 10 million people-hours per year among engineers alone – an average net annual loss of $485 million for the industry.
“During this time of economic upheaval, new technologies such as social media tools can help oil and gas industry professionals find information, collaborate and generally be more productive,” comments Craig Hodges, US energy and chemicals industry solutions director at Microsoft.
“In an environment with fewer workers and less resources, this is incremental productivity our industry can use in finding new reserves, improving execution of capital projects, driving new innovations and reducing costs,” he adds.
Interestingly, most oil and gas industry engineers reckon that advanced collaboration and information-sharing capabilities bring value not only in sharing enterprise knowledge, but also in completing operational projects.
“Companies are dealing with several trends right now, not only the aging workforce walking out the door with decades of knowledge, but also experienced hires coming into their businesses who need to understand a new corporate culture,” comments Claire Markwardt, senior executive, Accenture’s energy practice.
“Companies have an opportunity to supplement their existing collaboration capabilities with newer tools, such as podcasts and social networks, to accelerate the sharing of knowledge, increase teaming and augment communication between their workforces in different regions.”
