Size isn’t necessarily the deciding factor when it comes to the challenges of digital adoption. Much comes down to attitude: the strategic impetus to change, and the operational acceptance to ensure it happens.

In some ways, it’s an easier ask for smaller and mid-sized companies. A more compact ship to turn, fewer embedded ‘bad’ practices, and less legacy analog baggage.

But there’s huge opportunities for majors. The compounding economies of scale that come with refining just one process or workflow can often go a long way to offsetting digital investment. Many of our clients are in a period of rationalization and refinement, and digital technologies are playing a key role in this.  

But, of course, in the midst of a complex industry and within an often unwieldy corporate structure, change is anything but simple. 

Drowning in datasets

A key stumbling block for larger organizations is sheer data volume. The scale of data scattered across global operations is massive; in physical files, emails, Teams messages, legacy databases and people’s heads.

Data is always key, and big companies have massive amounts of it. That means there can be big gaps or ‘dirty data’ that must be addressed before a solution can deliver value.  

We still talk to larger operators who haven’t fully embraced digital solutions yet, and often it’s due to challenges like poor-quality or incomplete data. The need to clean up or repurpose it is overwhelming.  

Acting with intention

To deal with such vast amounts of data and such disparate systems, approaches to digital projects need to be logically planned, intelligently prioritized and highly intentional.  

As such, we’ve developed - very broadly speaking - a three step framework that helps our clients move from messy datasets and digital reluctance to streamlined ways of working and accelerated value creation.

Step one: working with what you’ve got

The first step should be a thorough assessment of what exists, and the potential it’s possible to get from it. Begin with a thorough audit of all tools, programs and processes, evaluating how well they perform, how closely they align with business objectives, and where there is the most room for efficiency.

Rather than deploying new solutions across the entire organization at once, identify the areas with the greatest pain points, the strongest data foundations, and the clearest opportunities for rapid value creation. Many large organizations overlook this foundational step, but no enterprise can be ready to transform without first understanding their current state. 

Step two: bringing together the best

Although many large organizations are accelerating their digital initiatives, the overall landscape remains fragmented. Numerous disconnected systems, isolated projects and bolt-on activities persist, hindering the efficiency that comes from consolidation and optimization.  

Identify software that helps to ‘link up’ existing tools that will be maintained, and build them into a holistic digital plan.  

Let’s look at FieldTwin as an example; best practice looks very different in a small or mid-sized player than it does for a major operator. For majors, FieldTwin integrates with existing ecosystems, serving as a central platform that unifies diverse data sources, tools and workflows. It’s never meant as a rip and replace, but a connective glue that starts to establish digital threads across workflows and projects. 

Step three: acting incrementally

Focus first on data that’s accessible and reliable. Identify a targeted set of data that’s up-to-date enough to solve a specific problem. Start there, prove the value, and scale gradually. Don’t try to boil the ocean.  

My colleague, Roman Gautreaux talks about this in more detail in his blog ‘Incremental journey, transformational success’. This incremental approach to ‘transformation’ has business-wide benefits beyond the digital transition itself. I mentioned earlier in this blog that operational acceptance - AKA adoption - is key to the success of any initiative; and by acting in a controlled, workflow- or process-specific way, strategic imperatives can demonstrate value more quickly, and more effectively bring stakeholders along on the journey.

Intentionality in action at Shell

Take for example, the very successful digital roll out we’ve seen at Shell. They had a very clear strategy for adopting digital technology across their organization.  

They did a comprehensive review of all the tools they were using internally, and our software was adopted as part of that broader digital plan because they could see clear synergies with their goals. 

Granularity, openness and intent: the drivers of digital success

In the end, whether an operator is large, small or somewhere in between, success comes down to openness and intentionality.  

When starting a request for tender (RFT) to digital providers, it’s critical to look for partners that tailor their approach to each situation. Digitalization and automation holds huge opportunities to improve operations at scale, but to begin with, the more granular the approach, the better.

If you’d like to discuss how FieldTwin could support your organization's digital journey, please get in touch.