Software Innovation

I’ve been at Quorum for 12 years. Over all of this time, over all the highs and lows, the changes and developments that the industry has undergone, Canada has emerged as one of the most exciting opportunities of my career.

I’ve been in Canada for about 6 months now, and the evolution of Quorum’s software up here has been pretty dramatic. I say, “up here” because we treat Canada and the U.S. and all of our geographical markets (Europe, Australia, etc.) as different entities. You might be thinking, “Well that’s a given, Roy. Obviously Canada and the U.S. are different.” And I’d agree with you, but sadly there are countless software vendors who believe in a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to land management solutions.

I’m proud to say that Quorum isn’t a one-size-fits-all company.

That’s not to say it’s been an easy road for Quorum. If creating Canadian land management software was easy, everyone would be doing it. But after documenting several unique differences between markets, we felt it was necessary for us to create Quorum Land Canada, land management software that was intentionally designed for the Canadian energy industry. Specifically, we noticed three major differences that led us to build something unique:

Environment

We knew that the Canadian market wouldn’t respond to a company introducing a product here and saying “Well, this is how we do it in the U.S.” We’ve been very fortunate to have a thriving Canadian business for over 15 years. We build, implement, and support our customers right here in Canada and that’s something we’re very proud of.

We had to prove ourselves in Land, however, and that meant making a serious investment.

Our software wasn’t a 100% match from the U.S. market to Canada. There were fundamental differences with Canadian land, and how the marketplace evolved over time compared to other areas. Instead of repackaging our software and shipping it north, we went back and made changes for land descriptions, contract management, agreements, and ownership. These discrepancies between American and Canadian land systems were a non-negotiable for us. They had to be addressed in order for us put our best foot forward.

Security and Collaboration

As we developed our software, we worked hand-in-hand with a leading Canadian oil and gas company to ensure that every widget, every button, and every feature made sense. We embedded ourselves into their day-to-day operations in order to understand, build, and enhance our product to support various functions, like how interest is managed.

Along the way, we exposed an area of concern that no company wants outsiders to see: Security. A lot of organizations don’t even realize the risk they’re currently taking on for some very sensitive information, as was the case with this partner. We had a solution that directly addressed their areas of vulnerability with enterprise-grade technology and collaborated with their IT team to show how Quorum Land Canada filled those cracks with modern and secure features.

We can say we’re modern and secure, but being able to show an organization’s IT department that their data is not at risk is key to their business.

Digital

When we first entered the Canadian marketplace, one of our initial observations was that many of the land management products being used by even large energy companies have hardly evolved or changed since the 1990’s. No investments being poured into innovation, and little to no upgrades being made. In that same vein, the vendors who did put incremental dollars into their technology were normally seen buying up little modules and band aiding them together, making integrations and reporting a tedious and unreliable process.

Certain features just hadn’t been created yet; things like full Geographic Information Systems (GIS) integration, field and back office integrations, tools to manage acquisitions and divestitures and flexible reporting. To me, these were basic functionalities that I’d taken for granted, but no software vendors in the area had allocated the time, nor the resources to build out these features specifically for Canada.

Fast forward to today and our GIS integration is in high demand in Canada. You can see information around agreements, track changes; it’s very visual and slick. We made the investment to be in modern, supportive technology. That means building partnerships with best-of-breed systems like Microsoft, upgrading to HTML5, and investing time and dollars into innovating every day so our Canadian customers can make smart decisions, faster.

What’s more is that Canada is hungry for this type of innovation. There’s a big appetite for building more efficient processes and bringing in next generation software as a means to make their day-to-day operations easier and more secure.

For more information on myQuorum Land Canada, watch our webinar.

#Innovating #Canadian #Oil #Gas #Market

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©2024 Coastal Flow Liquid Measurement, Inc. and Coastal Flow Gas Measurement, Inc., entities of Quorum Business Solutions, Inc.

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