Oil & Gas: Making the Case for Investing in an EHS Platform
The price of oil has declined, leading to slashed budgets. By now, pretty much everyone in the Oil & Gas industry is familiar with these words. During these challenging times, it’s tempting to look at things from a short-term tactical perspective, and lose sight of the long-term strategic view. Many firms are forced to postpone capital expenditures to take into account the situation of the market. Other types of investments that companies tend to postpone include IT and software technology.
If you’re an EHS manager in the Oil & Gas industry, how do you make the case for an investment in a comprehensive EHS platform? Most start by emphasizing the most obvious benefits:
- Ensuring regulatory compliance
- Improving EHS performance and safety of facilities
- Mitigating EHS and regulatory risks
- Reducing costs associated to fines, incidents and failing assets
But there are other elements that strengthen the case for Oil & Gas companies to invest in a complete EHS platform, and which may be overlooked at times:
- Knowledge retention: Slashed budgets have led to personnel changes in many Oil & Gas firms, including workers in the field, as well as managers and executives. An EHS platform can become the repository of valuable knowledge gained over the years, and that can be critical for the future. Such knowledge includes industry best practices, work processes, impacts of regulations on the organization, etc. Knowledge is a company’s most valuable asset and must be preserved through centralization and automation brought by software.
- Competitive advantage: Oil & Gas companies all face the same market situation. At worst, your competitors may already have an EHS platform in place to improve safety, and face EHS and regulatory challenges and risks more effectively; while you’re still struggling with less optimized methods. At best, your competitors may not have an EHS platform in place, in which case the implementation of an EHS platform could provide an opportunity to gain a competitive edge. For example, through such a platform, you would be better prepared to comply with evolving regulations, thus putting you in a better position to respond to new market opportunities.
- Process improvements: Any manual system or tool can log and record symptoms of failing processes. But an EHS platform is uniquely positioned to help identify root causes and the processes that need to be improved. By mapping all lagging indicators (incidents and accidents) and leading indicators (near-misses, observed behaviors) with internal processes, Oil & Gas firms can identify the processes that are the most at risk to negatively impact safety and productivity. This allows companies to focus on the areas of the business that need process improvements, to improve overall efficiency.
The case for an Oil & Gas company to invest in an EHS platform goes beyond EHS: it also drives operational excellence.
Find out more about the ways in which Oil & Gas companies can increase the efficiency of EHS processes with technology, through a webinar hosted by Enablon and featuring ERM on Wednesday, June 24 at 12pm EDT/11am CDT. This educational webinar explores:
- The current and upcoming EHS trends to look out for in the Oil & Gas industry
- Best practices for cost-effective technology investment decisions
- How leveraging technology will improve efficiency, safety and protection of facilities
- How to unlock the value of EHS data and improve decision-making with a comprehensive software solution
Save a free seat by registering here: http://bit.ly/1Si3CHP.