Infotech Lead Asia: The oil & gas industry needs to invest in information technology (IT) to improve business efficiency.
Ovum suggests this is the right time for oil and gas sector to invest in IT as IT evolves at a lightning pace and the exploration & production (E&P) segment is struggling to keep up.
It’s a big market opportunity for IT providers.
Innovative IT can help E&P companies improve efficiency, safety, production, and overall competitiveness. Data integration, warehousing solutions and application architectures common among other industries will be key investment areas for oil and gas producers, while IT vendors should look to adopt a tailored approach to offerings.
Bridge the technology and the cultural divide will be the big hurdle.
“The priority for the two industries will be to develop common standards and languages that foster closer communication, data integration, and the adoption of common processes across the technology and cultural divide,” said Warren Wilson, Ovum’s lead analyst for Energy & Sustainability IT.
As IT vendors increase their efforts in upstream oil & gas, they will face a series of choices about whether to compete or cooperate with the many specialists already well entrenched in the oilfield, and each option entails a different set of opportunities and challenges.
