Abstract
The use of IT solutions by business has grown considerably in the last decade moving the state of competition at higher levels. This paper will show that Bawling has experienced many challenges and later benefits upon the proper use of IT solutions. This paper suggests that such success is attributable to many factors but most significantly the explosion of the use of IT solutions that include E-commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Business Intelligence (BI), and Data Warehousing. A literature review is done to show the challenges facing the oil and gas industry and the role of IT in solving these issues in Bawling Energy. The conclusion provides a summary of the factors that have led to sustainability at Bawling in the competitive oil and gas industry.
Introduction
Bawling Energy Corporation is a rapidly growing company located in Texas, the US and involved in the extraction and production of high-quality oil and gas products. Bawling Energy was established in November of 1980 on the principles of utilizing the state-of-the-art oil and gas extraction technology to the growth of oil and gas projects. Bawling continues to refine its production activities by targeting its oil extraction effort in the Mississippi oil window of Northern Oklahoma. The First Bawling firm joined the oil and gas industry in 1980 with the acquisition of land in Texas for commercial development. This land was in the Mississippi oil window, having some unexplored oil reserves. Today, the oil and gas business has expanded to include crude oil properties.
The corporate strategy of Bawling is envisioned in the following guiding principles. First, to maximize the value of available assets by expanding production and exploring reserves while regulating costs. Second, keep targeting certain areas where the company boasts a competitive edge resulting from the ever-evolving technology. Third, ensure a highly competitive workforce of competent engineers and human resource personnel based on the proper use of IT solutions. Bawling’s vision is to grow to be a leading oil and gas exploration and production company within and beyond the United States.
Its mission is to optimize value for stakeholders in a manageable way, by ensuring the integrity and considering the local communities. Bawling believes in various core values that include professionalism, integrity, respect, diversity, self-drive, innovation, and teamwork.
Since its inception, Bawling has had a lot of opportunities as well as challenges. The most adverse challenges facing Bawling include poor accessibility of market information, poor and slow accounting processes, inefficient marketing strategies and time wastage. All these drawbacks are attributable to the inadequate use of IT solutions as will be shown later in this paper. Some of the opportunities experienced so far include cross-sector partnerships. Bawling has engaged in strategic partnerships to improve environmental safety and excel within governmental regulations. The rise in demand for gas and oil properties has led to an increase in market share. However, the increased market share has been possible due to the application of modern methods such as e-commerce.
Despite the increased demand for oil and gas products, the competition for the market has intensified with the flexibility of global trade. Besides, information technology is growing at a fast rate making it difficult for industries to keep on updating manually. In a bid to increase efficiency in operations and sustain costs, Bawling needs to incorporate Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Business Intelligence (BI), Data Warehousing, as well as E-commerce strategies. ERP system is suitable for integrating business operations across departments into a centralized information system. ERP helps improve coordination and communication across departments.
This increased flexibility helps cut on costs, reduce risk, maximize IT spending, and facilitate the general productivity of Bawling Energy. BI systems help create rich and useful information and use it to guide daily operations so that teams can ensure effective and accurate decisions. For instance, the information gathered through BI systems helps managers gain insights about the demands of their customers, market dynamics, and the best strategies to use resources. Consequently, E-commerce continues to serve as the most critical facet of the internet used by Bawling Energy to conduct cross-border marketing and shopping.
Background information
This review focuses on project success in Bawling Energy by examining factors that influence its depth in using IT solutions. The oil and gas industry views IT solutions as key business modalities of the future. The objective of this study is to examine how IT solutions continue to facilitate transactions, widen markets among other factors that make IT solutions more attractive. Traditionally, project progress was evaluated based on the three measures of cost, time, and performance. The realization that project success is multi-facet prompts the question of whether various input elements may have a significant influence on different project success.
Baxter (2005) explored the essence of creating an appropriate IT system and concluded that it leads to not only efficient outcomes but also timely responses. This author further established that a substantial number of high-stature projects collapse or fail to reach a time target due to a lack of appropriate IT solutions. Some of these failures as discussed by Doloi (2009) include budget overruns, overlooked project demands, and omitted specifications.
Bawling has sought to invest in this new business modality to offset their operating costs. Based on this knowledge, this paper seeks to build on the IT solutions framework of the Bawling Energy to show how e-commerce, BI, ERP, and DW have helped in overcoming operational challenges in the company. However, through the literature review, this paper will show how the Bawling management fills the gap between the production and marketing of its products.
Research Methodology
This review did an extensive search of the literature to identify evidence from previous articles concerned with the influence of IT solutions on the growth of the oil and gas industry. Ten articles were selected, but upon examination, the study was narrowed to six sources. Review of literature focused on case studies of oil and gas companies on a global scale to understand the dynamics of the changing oil industry. This search included peer-reviewed articles mainly discussing IT advances in the oil and gas industry. The study excluded sources that did not present issues on any of the IT solutions selected for this study.
Literature Review
This review targets to guide the current analysis in issuing a tacit understanding of the opportunities and limitations regarding IT solutions that steer project success in the oil industry. This review explores previous studies to identify avenues for the appropriate use of IT solutions. Various researchers have examined performance in various industries under different circumstances. A review is critical in a bid to establish an approach that can be used in understanding the processes of Bawling Energy. Particularly, the present paper reviews the literature related to various elements of management efficiency based on the aspects of E-commerce, BI, and ERP.
According to Collins (2011), quality improvement entails attaining defined standards and it is achieved if the accomplished project conforms to the initial plans. This scholar defines quality as the product of the project management plan based on the period and budget. Jha and Iyer (2007) did a study of the corporate performance of the Shell refining company in India. In this research, these scholars explored the general performance of the Indian manufacturing sector for five years on parameters of market share, profitability, liquidity, and solvency. The solvency and profitability margins were observed to be declining during the period of the study.
This research found that poor corporate performance was attributable to the improper handling of business information. This inefficiency was partly due to the presence of varying software for different processes. When systems run separately, it can cause huge damages to the processes that are intended to ensure an organization is running effectively. ERP software links these systems to allow every operation to run on a single database.
Peslak (2012) aimed to establish factors that affect corporate economic growth. This study established poor access to information about the business as the main factor that derailed growth. This study identified that companies that rely on spreadsheets that need to be updated and retrieved manually could be time-wasting. Following the fast-growing technology, the pace of business has spiked. This change compels employees to have immediate access to key data.
With an ERP and DW solution, management can have a comprehensive view of business proceedings at any moment. Besides, other staff can access the information they require to perform their tasks more efficiently. These factors were identified to be including utilization of BI, ERP, and Data Warehousing to enhance planning, advertisement, and procurement. These characteristics were identified as the foundations for Bawling to stand a better chance of implementing their goals successfully.
Quality improvement leads to the gaining of reputation and trust of the Bawling Company hence prolonged growth in the oil industry. As the oil and gas industry has become highly competitive, the management team has been compelled to revise their strategies to adopt BI systems to provide the agility to respond to the evolving business needs. Ranganathan (2012) argued that continuous project progress is an on-going planned effort to magnify daily operations at a competitive level. This goal is attained by continuously utilizing e-commerce and DW to learn customer experience and ensure their satisfaction.
The case of Bawling Energy
Bawling Energy is a fast-growing oil and gas company regarding market share. Since its inception, Bawling has concentrated on exploration and extraction as well as refinery and marketing of oil and gas products. Following the heated competition for market share, Bawling has experienced major challenges in keeping customers and entering new markets compelling it to engage in the modernization project. Bawling has had the tradition of keeping sales, inventory and customer data separately. Consequently, if a client seeks to inquire about an order and workers are unable to track it to see the status; a company begins to grow a poor reputation for reliability.
However, Bawling is experiencing major problems in various sectors that include accounting, sales, customer experience, and coordination. Accounting takes long periods, and the process is very complex. This complexity is an indication that Bawling needs to update its system by utilizing ERP software. In a bid to avoid time wastage and big workforce needed to enter invoices and sales, ERP software can be used to tackle these duties in an instant. Similarly, consolidating financial information can be done using ERP software. Consequently, the accounting staff at Bawling can be more productive since ERP assists them in delivering complex reports with delays and mistakes.
Key performance indicators
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are means employed to determine or assess the performance of business units and employees. KPIs are connected to target values to assess if the value of the outcome meets the set expectations. Examples of KPIs include marketing and sales, manufacturing, IT operations, and supply and chain management among other factors that determine the success or failure of a business unit. In Bawling Energy, the marketing and sales department seeks to evaluate the status of the existing customers and acquire new ones. The manufacturing sector ensures that the products’ quality is not questionable. Quality products cut the rejection rate to almost zero.
The IT systems that solve a wide array of issues including cashiering, cash management, general accounting, marketing, financial reporting, and research has advanced into a relatively stable and reliable system at Bawling. However, the case project identified various areas of focus for continuity, if these systems are to hold the test of time. First, there is the need to centralize support and training, customer satisfaction and experience analysis, and effective communication. Second, interface design should target on maximizing each relevant stakeholder group.
The project charter
Bawling has sought to expand its resources by selling goods and services online to offset operational costs. The changes are intended to increase the customer base at both local and international markets by providing household, industrial and organizational services, and goods. The executive management at Bawling will be mandated with the role to oversee the incorporation of the IT solutions. Since the market is becoming more diverse, the project to introduce updated IT solutions should embark immediately to avoid losing track with the market requirements. However, Bawling needs to employ IT experts as well as set enough funds for the project process.
The number of funds the company is willing to put into IT activities will depend on the level of sophistication. The systems employed should be self-explanatory so training time is minimized and procedures are easily captured. Additionally, the project should be approached in segmented, manageable efforts utilizing a friendly deployment system.
The specific IT solutions include BI, ERP, DW, and E-commerce. Business intelligence refers to the impact of collecting and synthesizing data and cultivating it back to daily business. The management team gets into a good position to realize clients’ needs, ability to respond to market fluctuations and quality analysis among other benefits. In light of this development in the business environment, Bawling Company has been able to find ways of cutting on financial spending and meet cost targets. Bawling needs to employ KIPs such as proper communication channels to ensure that no delays or omissions are resulting from the communication breakdown.
ERP systems have also proved inevitable in the oil and gas industry as it entails all the internal jargons, diverse accounting practices as well as providing multilingual facilities. ERP software tries to interlink business activities across all cross-functional departments into a unit. This strategy has benefited the Bawling project management triangle through improving coordination across departments and crossing all gaps in communication. Consequently, Bawling has been able to increase productivity and insight, integrate evolving industry needs, retain top engineers, cut costs using KPIs such as increased flexibility, and enhance access to industry information.
Management scope and needs
The discourse of project management entails providing the facilities and means that assist the project team to foresee and organize their task to meet the three primary dimensions of project success. In the Bawling Company, in regards to e-commerce management requires accurate information to be in a position to respond appropriately in an unpredictable business environment. The most critical customer need is feedback. Bawling Energy management has to evaluate the market condition about customer needs. The identified customer requirements have to be managed properly to facilitate quality and fast evaluation of their needs.
The management team requires timely information gained through BI systems to make the right decisions. To this end, Bawling’s information systems are centered on business intelligence as it has emerged as a major way to attain a competitive advantage by supporting effective decision-making. Furthermore, BI creates a better understanding of the customer base hence leading to more sales due to good timing achieved via examining historical trends. BI also creates a better understanding of particular customer demands as well as determining transactions that lead to higher profit margins.
Challenges facing Bawling Energy
Huge capital investment is needed despite the uncertainties associated with the energy sector. Besides, the oil and gas sector attracts complex supply chains that make it hard to accomplish projects within set timelines and budgets. Peslak (2012) identified that most energy-related projects suffer cost and time overruns. Compounding the challenge is an absence of operational insight caused by the dependency of data from unauthentic sources.
Without accurate information and a precise understanding of a certain issue, it is hard to determine what actions to take first. The development of substitute energy sources is stiffening the competition for scarce human experts. Undoubtedly, difficult moments for the oil and gas industry have commenced. Nonetheless, the case might not be tough for firms that leverage innovative technology to optimize investments, cut costs, and mitigate damages. As highlighted earlier, these milestones can be achieved if a company values ERP, BI, and other E-commerce portfolios.
To attain global energy needs, capital investment is estimated to reach double figures within about five years (Baxter, 2005). However, Bawling requires enough depth, precision, and integrity to ensure that it meets the world’s standards. This milestone can be achieved by introducing a market-shopping portal. This shopping site should target local and global customers as well as suppliers. Such technologies include in-memory computing, cloud computing, and analytics software among other systems. These advances have helped Bawling to optimize each resource for net return on investment. Through the application of closed-loop management, Bawling Energy continues to manage capital and spend to promote asset productivity.
Governance Framework
To ensure the continuity of the business growth initiatives upon implementation, Bawling Energy employs business continuity management plans. Business continuity management entails the creation of means and actions that offer protection or alternative ways of doing things for those operations if interfered with might lead to significant loss to the organization. This approach involves various major aspects that include crisis handling and communications, business resumption planning and IT disaster management. Crisis handling and communications is a framework developed to ensure an appropriate response to a situation (Doloi, 2009).
In Bawling, crisis-handling process target at stabilizing the condition and assessing the business for recovery activities via good planning, leadership, and proper communication channels. Business recovery planning entails the resumption of crucial business functions and activities that enhance the delivery of main products to the market. Similarly, IT disaster recovery serves to enhance Bawling Energy by addressing the recovery of essential IT systems, storage, and network bases (Jha & Iyer, 2007).
Communication plan
The communication plan in Bawling Energy seeks to address all potential risks or stabilize and mitigate more damage in case of an unexpected crisis. Crisis handling is conducted at all departmental levels including public relations, human resources, regulatory affairs, and all the business units (Collins, 2011). The communication plan should target at encouraging customers to purchase more items. However, the online platform should focus on adding more products and promotional offers often. The essence of a communication plan is to ensure effective and timely responses from employees, customers, shareholders, and regulatory agencies. Bawling undertakes training and creation of awareness to enhance effective communication within the departments. These instructions are often transmitted through computer-based approaches targeting the information obtained via BI systems.
Conclusion
The encouraging explosions in IT solutions in the oil and gas industry evoke the project management teams to make regular changes to their decision-making. Oil and gas companies can make appropriate decisions with the help of current and accurate information. Additionally, the use of the Internet by companies has increased making entry into IT platforms a logical step. This information is obtained via E-commerce platforms, the ERP software, and BI systems. Under the strong competition in the oil and gas industry, Bawling needs to adopt flexible and wide-reaching marketing strategies. Cost, time, and performance are factors that play an important role in Bawling success. In this light, Bawling will be in a better position to compete with both domestic and global platforms.
References
Baxter, M. (2005). Global Challenges Facing the Oil and Gas Industry. Journal of Petroleum Technology, 57(4), 14-15. Web.
Collins, R. (2011). Project management. New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers. Web.
Doloi, H. (2009). Relational partnerships: the importance of communication, trust and confidence and joint risk management in achieving project success. Construction Management and Economics, 27(11), 1099-1109. Web.
Jha, K., & Iyer, K. (2007). Commitment, coordination, competence, and the iron triangle. International Journal of Project Management, 25(5), 527-540. Web.
Peslak, A. (2012). Information technology project management and project success. International Journal of Information Technology Project Management, 3(3), 31-44. Web.
Ranganathan, C. (2012). The role of extrinsic cues in consumer decision process in online shopping environments. Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations, 10(1), 52-71. Web.