Why are Software Evaluations Important for the Oil & Gas Companies?
Every successful business experiences growing pains, but few shocks feel as severe as when your oil and gas company realizes it needs to upgrade its software. You know that such improvements are necessary, but they can also be fraught with conflict and confusion, especially when you don’t have a clear software evaluation plan.
We want to help you understand precisely why you need a thorough procedure to rate and review every possible software solution you might consider. Your business and employees will appreciate that you’re taking the necessary time to make the right decision.
What is a Software Evaluation?
A software evaluation is a comprehensive approach that involves analyzing current state, future state, total cost of ownership, quantitative and qualitative requirements to determine the best solution for the business. It also provides leaders the opportunity to view software demonstrations to get a feel for the overall user experience.
4 Reasons a Software Evaluation is Essential for Your Business
1. It Meets Specific Business Needs
The first step is to outline your business requirements. We recommend asking the following questions within your organization.
- What are the current gaps in our processes and workflows?
- How can we close those gaps?
- What are the future growth plans?
- How can we improve our current business model?
- How can we prepare for the direction of our business?
- What are the most significant pain points for our employees?
- What are the most prominent pain points for our customers?
2. It Addresses a Variety of Requirements
After determining the business needs / requirements, analyze how those needs may conflict or overlap with other teams.
To level set, consider the following perspectives:
- What drives business forward?
- What addresses immediate work?
- What will help us grow?
- What will help us increase revenue?
- What simplifies basic work tasks?
- What reduces overhead?
- What can be effectively automated?
The ideal software for your company will be the one that enables greater productivity, integrates easily with other systems, and can easily scale as your company scales.
3. It Offers High-Quality User Experience
Involve key end-users in your information gathering sessions as they will provide information on pain areas, and offer ideas to improve processes. Early exposure to software also improves adoption once the software is implemented. Stakeholders will have had time to explore the different software options and ask the right questions, enhancing the user experience.
4. It Will Benefit the Company Long Term
Oftentimes, companies use off-system, siloed workarounds to complete their day to day tasks because of a slew of different reasons. This causes unnecessary stress on employees, and does not set the company up to scale. For example, if the company pursued an asset acquisition, they would lack the IT infrastructure to support the transaction, impacting their ability to diversify and grow long-term.
Ensure your software selection process addresses the following:
- Delivers scalable capabilities
- Provides integrated reporting
- Streamlines essential business processes
- Offers flexibility and reliability
Hire the Experts to Conduct your Software Evaluation
Although you may have ample oil and gas industry experience, third party firms who specialize in software evaluation methodologies provide additional insight that may not be considered, including:
- Assessing business needs
- Projecting company growth
- Rating user experience qualifications
- Gathering potential solutions
- Completing the implementation
- Providing long-term care of your software and hardware needs
Partner with EAG Inc., to facilitate your software evaluation process. We deliver on time, on budget software evaluations and recommendations that help set oil and gas organizations up with a new standard of operational excellence.