December 2018

How important do you think networks such as the Oil & Gas Council are for your firm’s business development strategies? In particular what value do you think Aucerna will extract at our upcoming Asia Pacific Energy Assembly?

The Oil & Gas Council and its assemblies provide Aucerna with an opportunity to keep the finger in the pulse of the O&G marketplace and to be exposed to the latest thinking and sentiment of the O&G community. It also provides us with a unique opportunity to present our plans and vision and to gather immediate feedback and reactions to them from the key players of our target market.

What has been the greatest challenge you have faced so far in your tenure at Aucerna? What do you see as the greatest challenge specific to the APAC region?

The greatest challenge for Aucerna in the APAC region has been the pace at which O&G companies have been rethinking their planning and portfolio processes. In the last 12 months Aucerna has seen these processes become a pivotal part of the restructuring of the USA O&G companies, where these processes have been identified as a key enabler of profitability and resilience, as well as a key component of any digitalization efforts. In Aucerna’s view, the APAC region has not caught up yet with this transformational wave.

Can you share with us what Aucerna’s main strategic goals are for the next 12 months across the region?

Our strategic goals for the next 12 months are to consolidate and grow our activity on the top O&G companies already making substantial use of our software in the region, whilst also securing at least one anchor customer in two countries where our software is not begin used yet.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities for growth within the industry in the next 5 years, does APAC’s outlook differ at all, and how are you positioned to support this? 

In the last 12 months there has been a growing realization in the industry that the market will be divided into two groups: those who embrace digitalization and those that will be out of business. USA is the leading region in this transformation, with some key companies well into restructuring orgcharts and processes to undergo this transformation.  These efforts are only incipient in APAC at this stage. The whole Aucerna proposition since its inception has been precisely that digitalization can help companies make better strategic decisions, avoid inefficiencies, mistakes and errors, and make the O&G workforce more productive in the same breath. Therefore, we believe that Aucerna is uniquely placed to support O&G companies in their digitalization efforts.

What topics are you most looking forward to discussing and debating at the Asia Pacific Energy Assembly?

On the one hand, we are looking forward to catch up with the O&G key players in APAC about their views on digitalization and whether they see it as an important part of their strategy going forward. On the other, we are looking forward to share what do we see happening in other regions of the world on this front.

Cesc Battle will be speaking on the Digital Technologies panel at the Energy Council's Asia Pacific Energy Assembly, 30 – 31 January 2019, Singapore.