Three of the main problems faced by businesses in the Oil & Gas industry are improving collaboration, developing a high performing culture and reducing costs to remain competitive. These problems are made more difficult by complex, global projects, high levels of operational risk, a talent shortage and ageing workforce, and the emphasis on doing more for less.
The number one productivity tool in any business is Outlook so it makes sense to start there to get the most efficiency. Outlook is something where we haven’t really changed the way we use it over the last 15 years, but what if there was a better way? Especially with the vast majority of project information buried within email, particularly on large projects such as these.
In Oil & Gas, you may use systems across the business for Finance, Job Costing, Mobile Data capture, but when your projects go wrong & people start playing the blame game, what becomes important? Ask yourself:
- How organised your Project Manager has been?
- How the contract has been communicated?
- What level of scope creep has taken place?
To answer these questions Oil & Gas firms need to know where key project information is, and if you’ve ever been concerned that your Director or Project Manager has all of this in their Inbox somewhere, then why not evaluate how your project correspondence is managed?
Using email to improve operational outcomes
Filing and searching emails in Outlook is slow, staff don’t do it and it makes it very difficult to recover critical information when you need it most.
We recently spoke to a business in the Oil & Gas industry that had to return £70k to a customer because of a dispute they had, and they couldn’t find the important email to prove their case. Unfortunately, this is a more and more common conversation we are having in the industry, and businesses are starting to look at ways of how to improve their number one productivity tool.
Email management can play a significant part in addressing the major industry challenges. Improved accessibility to any email in any project will empower collaboration and boost logistics. Providing employees with the right tools and training to efficiently do their job will help create a high-performing culture, and saving wasted time spent looking for information buried within email results in significant productivity gains and cost savings.
Find any email on any project in 3 clicks
Mail Manager provides a project-based email management solution already implemented in Red7 Marine, Offshore Design Engineering (ODE), and Rigmar. ODE has been using Mail Manager for over a decade and details its approach to email management:
'The tool has grown to be essential for the running of our company. It aids efficiency and is a key tool for seamless communication within daily operations.
When a colleague is off-sick or absent, communications can be hindered. An important email is kept in someone’s inbox which can cause a blockage. However, by using Mail Manager, you have quick access to emails filed by your colleagues, ensuring that projects are kept moving forwards in employee’s absences. In the engineering industry, which often has high-value projects with strict deadlines, this is essential.
Mail Manager has been invaluable for ensuring that ODE’s communications run smoothly and that projects can be collaboratively worked on with ease.'
Additionally, a Wind Farm and Renewables Consultant describes the value of Mail Manager:
'Mail Manager is a cutting edge tool that makes our life so easy. Team members can read each others emails (e.g. communication with the client) and solve issues even when information was not shared with them.'
Mail Manager allows businesses to find any email on any project in 3 clicks and saves people on average 30 minutes per day.
