Are You Changing How You Work?
Evolve believes that the companies that will really thrive in the future are those that unlock the ability to learn faster, opening up their people to new possibilities, challenging closely-held paradigms and changing the model of how they work to release new value. Being competitive means the Oilsands needs to move from "as good as" to "better than".
Maximize Productivity & Return on Capital
The oilsands industry competes on a global scale for investment capital and must sell its product into a global market. Long term, there are a number of structural challenges facing the industry as compared with other global hydrocarbon investment options, particularly US tight oil. These include: lower product price, higher transport costs, high operating cost, higher royalties, and more stringent environmental requirements. All of these long-term capital investment challenges exacerbate the current challenges of the low oil price.
Learn Faster
There are real limits to cost cutting without transforming the underlying approach to work. You can’t simply cut your way to more efficient work execution or surveillance — you actually have to change the workflow processes, use data and key performance indicators to create business efficiencies and enhance staff effectiveness. Productivity is key. Options to overcome these challenges include: reliability, asset management, project cycle time, and leadership and culture.
Create a Culture & Capability for Ongoing Improvement
You will need to motivate the people who have stayed on and are potentially doing the job of more than one person. Remember that the company has taken many people out of the organization, but hasn’t actually changed “how” they work. In this constrained environment, fear will cause your people to be less innovative with many just keeping their heads down and trying not to stand out or create any ripples in the organization. However, this is a time when you need to really maximize innovation and new ideas. To enable real change, you will need to find ways to take the fear out of the organization and create the right environment for real innovation.