The Digital Cloud

I am presently involved with helping the SPE organise a Information Management forum, the general theme of which is demonstrating the value of information management. I wrote the following draft abstract for the brochure to introduce the theme. What do you think? Any feedback?

Demonstrating the Value

If you were to ask any CEO in the oil industry or indeed any other industry about the importance of information to his business what would his answer be?

It has been reported that over 90% of organizations view their ability to manage electronic information as critical to their future, that information is a key asset that should be managed appropriately and one which provides a significant opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Historically though, and especially within the Exploration & Production domain, many information and data management professionals have found it difficult to demonstrate the true value of information management to the business. The challenge is that while information management is the enabler of the business processes which deliver the business results, there is often no clear direct link between information projects and business performance. As a result of this, especially during periods of low commodity prices and a challenging business environment such as the one we are presently experiencing, information management finds itself a potential target for cost reduction and project cancellation.

Meanwhile the information management challenges are growing at an ever increasing rate. The amount of data now generated during the lifetime of an reservoir has moved into the Petabytes and is fast heading towards Exabytes. Integrated workflows and next generation technical applications offer greater capabilities for modelling, visualisation, running simulations and analysing multiple scenarios but are placing an ever increasing demand for easy and timely access to quality data sources.

We need to think differently, possibly very differently to meet the information demands of the industry, successfully solve the problems that lie ahead and demonstrate the value of information management.