Stop Selecting Best-of-Breed Applications

Selecting “best-of-breed” applications has been the logical thought process for choosing business software in the upstream oil and gas industry for years. However, as technology advances, we see a shift in how digitally transformative companies view software selection.

Instead of selecting best-of-breed applications, companies that choose a single platform for their upstream suite have seen an increase in overall business agility, operational efficiency, and have transitioned personnel to a modern energy workforce. Departments in E&P companies are drawn into selecting best-of-breed applications for reasons that are valid when looked at in the vacuum of a single department.

Reasons why E&P companies select best-of-breed:

• • Choosing products with the most features and functions;

• • Decisions are made in organizations silos;

• • The illusion of increased flexibility by working with specialized vendors;

• • The assumption that maintenance and upgrades can be performed on one system without affecting the others; and

• • The ability to improve processes for a single department.

But most companies ignore the real expense, which is not the software but the total cost of ownership that comes with installing, deploying, maintaining, supporting, and upgrading multiple applications.

The problems with best-of-breed selection:

• • You will have to create, support, and maintain the “glue-ware” between ever-changing applications;

• • End-users will have different experiences that result in separate training for each product with little cross-functional knowledge;

• • Data integrity issues will arise with finger-pointing, and you will ask yourself “whose data is correct?”; and

• • Hidden costs of redundant data storage, maintenance, and support for multiple applications.

With the advances in upstream software, these pitfalls can be avoided. By leveraging a platform solution from a single vendor with one data model and user experience, you gain a complete view of your business.

Benefits of a single platform:

• • Build a complete picture: Capture data at the source and then build upon that foundation throughout the upstream lifecycle.

• • Dashboards to details: With unified data across all phases of your operations, bring whatever business intelligence tool you prefer and analyze cross-discipline data with ease.

• • Data dysfunction to data-driven: Break out of silos with a single data model that doesn’t need third-party integrations or processes.

The journey to a single platform does not come without its challenges. Read our Weathering the Data Storm Infographic to discover the common obstacles that E&P companies must overcome as they “weather the data storm” and move from “best-of-breed” applications to an integrated upstream suite.

For more information on our integrated solution designed to take E&P companies to the next evolution of data management, visit our new Quorum On Demand site.