Malaysian oil & gas companies invest in digital technologies

Malaysian Oil & Gas companies are spending smarter today on digital technologies, seeking to drive value and reduce costs amid low oil and gas prices, a new global survey by Accenture and Microsoft Corp. reports.

Over the next three to five years, 80 percent of oil and gas companies plan to spend the same, more, or significantly more (30%, 36%, and 14%, respectively) on digital technologies as they do now, according to the survey, now in its fifth edition.

More than half (53 percent) of respondents said digital is already adding high to significant value to their businesses. Cost reduction was identified as the biggest challenge that digital technologies can most address today, respondents said. In addition, respondents reported that making faster and better decisions was the greatest benefit digital technologies can deliver (56 percent) and that one of the biggest barriers to realizing value is the lack of a clear strategy or business case, not the technology itself.

Today’s digital investments focus more on mobility, with almost three-fifths of respondents (57 percent) reporting having invested in mobile, compared to 49 percent of the respondents in last year’s survey. Next is investing in the Internet of Things (IoT) (44 percent) this year vs. 25 percent in 2015 and the cloud (38 percent), up 8 percent from last year. Over the next three to five years, these investments are expected to shift more to big data and analytics (38 percent), IoT (36 percent) and mobile (31 percent).

The survey findings were revealed for the first time in Asia through a session involving simultaneous media briefing session for Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. The same session also highlighted demonstrations of digital technologies of analytics, mobility and IoT at work in fuel retailing, plant maintenance and workforce training settings.

Lee Vee Meng, Managing Director, Accenture ASEAN Energy lead, said of the survey, “The findings put into focus very interesting developments in ASEAN where the Oil & Gas industry is using digital technologies to help them gain competitive advantage and cost efficiencies to successfully navigate the current industry and economic challenges. The better decision-making capability that comes with that investment is also helping companies position for future growth and transform into high-performance companies by identifying new business models, revenue streams and transforming the entire value chain.”