Optimizing user experience design for user efficiency
NIKI THOMAS, QUORUM BUSINESS SOLUTIONS, DALLAS
OIL AND GAS companies are hungry for solutions to the unprecedented challenges stemming from market volatility and an aging out of the industry's skilled workforce. With crushing instability in commodity prices, companies are feeling squeezed to increase efficiency in operations, while at the same time, reduce costs by cutting jobs. Moreover, almost half of the industry's workforce will reach retirement age within the next few years. In an industry that shed more than a quarter million jobs in two years, already stressed oil and gas companies are on a collision course for a severe labor shortage. To meet these challenges head on and sustain margins in a crushing environment, oil and gas companies must leverage innovation in order to chart a course through a dramatically different operating landscape.
BUSINESS CHALLENGES
As oil and gas companies continue to struggle with low prices due to oversupply and low demand, they are redirecting their cost-cutting efforts towards internal processes. These companies are working to identify areas of opportunity to improve efficiencies and many are focusing on automating manual processes, which add unnecessary employee effort and are more susceptible to errors. Costs associated with human error and prior period adjustments can be significant, especially since oil and gas companies manage large amounts of accounting and transactional data. Automating processes and improving efficiencies in this area will help reduce expenses and preserve profits.
In addition to improving efficiencies, oil and gas companies are also seeking new and creative ways to address the skilled worker shortage caused by the aging out of the oil and gas workforce. "The great crew change," according to the American Petroleum Institute, is occurring because an estimated 50% of skilled energy workers are currently eligible or will be eligible for retirement within the next five to seven years. In order to compensate for these retirements, Schlumberger forecasts the energy industry would be required to hire 10,000 skilled workers annually through the year 2020.
With this workforce shortage, oil and gas companies will be required to tap into the largest generation in the workforce, the millennials. According to PwC, millennials will make up 50% of the global workforce by 2020. The first generation to grow up immersed in digital media, this group has different expectations when it comes to the workplace than previous generations. Millennials expect anywhere, anytime access along with easy-to-use applications that have a similar look and feel as the consumer products they use daily. Therefore, oil and gas companies must alter their technology efforts to attract these individuals.
The challenges associated with a volatile market and the changing expectations of the incoming workforce are forcing business and IT leaders to turn to technology innovation. Specifically, how to use modern devices, systems, and automation to attract, train, and retain an entirely new workforce that perceives the industry as unstable and outdated. But, does this type of software actually exist for the oil and gas industry?
CURRENT STATE OF THE OIL AND GAS SOFTWARE INDUSTRY
Most oil and gas software has fallen behind. Blame it on a down market, on vendor complacency, and on prioritizing technology investments in other areas such as extraction. When it comes to financial operations and accounting software that enables oil and gas companies to analyze performance, modern solutions are few. For example, in a recent article in OGFJ, Enertia CEO Vince Dawkins says, "Like other companies, Enertia is guilty of this and we have fallen behind the curve of keeping ahead of technology BUT we are in a mode of catching up and getting in front of the curve."
While the majority of the oil and gas software industry struggles to stay afloat amidst a customer base that has seen about 75 E&P bankruptcies since the start of last year alone, the broader software industry is exploring new technology limits: IoT Architecture and Platforms, Advanced System Architecture, and Advanced Machine Learning are just three of Gartner's Top-10 Strategic Technology Trends 2016. So is there innovation happening in the oil and gas software industry?
One example comes from Quorum, a provider of software for hydrocarbon and energy business management. Quorum announced the energy industry's first persona-based user experience platform, myQuorum. The company followed with the general availability release of myQuorum for pipeline management, along with add-ins for Microsoft Office to enhance the myQuorum user experience platform for energy companies. Quorum also communicated its plans for additional myQuorum software releases later in 2016 and throughout 2017. But why the emphasis on user experience in a market as tempestuous as oil and gas?
WHAT IS A PERSONA?
First, what is a persona and why does it matter to user experience? A persona represents an intended user. Alan Cooper, the inventor of the modern-day design persona, defines personas as user profiles that describe the key goals, behaviors, and attitudes of target users. Put simply, a persona represents a user and combines characteristics, key goals, and actions of these users with their roles and responsibilities.
Personas are developed by segmenting users and then performing extensive research to understand the actions, patterns, and behaviors of the users. A persona personalizes the user's experience to provide a workflow that represents their needs. Ultimately, personas optimize user experience design, which optimizes user efficiency. And, efficiency is a big deal for oil and gas companies, especially when commodity prices plunge to historic lows.
When Quorum developed its myQuorum persona-based user experience platform, the company designed the personas with energy industry leaders spanning the entire energy value chain. In the case of myQuorum for pipeline management, Quorum worked with pipeline companies including Pembina, TransGas, and others to develop personas that meet the needs and requirements of their representative users.
THE VALUE OF PERSONAS
With the implementation of a persona-based solution, oil and gas companies are able to improve efficiency while also providing the mobility and usability that the millennial workforce is expecting. And because persona-based solutions address workflow automation, which can be complex in the oil and gas industry, companies benefit from shorter learning curves and lower training costs for new employees. The value of personas doesn't stop with the millennial generation though. Persona-based solutions:
Increase productivity and user satisfaction. Designed around how the user performs his or her role, productivity and user satisfaction is enhanced through dashboards, widgets, and dynamic workflows that make adoption self-paced and straightforward. Automated processes, streamlined workflows, and simplified tasks also enhance user satisfaction while satisfying business efficiency objectives.
Decrease training costs. Personas streamline and automate work, providing the right information in real time. The personas prompt users to take action on relevant tasks for their roles, reducing training costs and getting new users up to speed in record time, which provides employees the satisfaction of being self-sufficient quickly.
Reduce entry errors and prevent costly mistakes. A properly designed persona brings all workflows, even those from disparate systems, together into one experience for the user. This not only simplifies work, but also reduces errors and prevents costly mistakes. Oil and gas companies and their customers get all the information they need in one location, in fewer clicks, without the hassle of accessing multiple systems, screens, and reports.
Deliver consumer-like experiences to users. Empower users to quickly respond to events with visibility on a mobile device or a laptop, at work or at home, with a consumer-like experience for a changing workforce.
FINAL TAKEAWAYS
By implementing a user experience for the person who will actually be using the software, oil and gas companies can improve efficiency and attract new employees. Personas streamline workflows, reduce errors, and optimize processes to maximize resource utilization for the business while also providing the usability, mobility, and data access that users expect. The adoption of personas in oil and gas will position companies for success as the workforce changes and the market improves.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Niki Thomas is a senior product marketing manager for Quorum Business Solutions. Previously a product manager for industry leaders such as Flowserve and General Electric, she has more than ten years of experience in oil and gas. Thomas received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Methodist University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas.
