Businesses use a huge array of information every day that leverages the power of location. However, not everyone needs to be aware of this to make decisions regarding assets, opportunities and emergencies that help companies maintain a competitive edge. A day in the life of an executive illustrates how geography matters substantially, even if it is behind the scenes.
The average integrated oil company executive logs onto the secure corporate network on a daily basis. The log-in offers a simple screen – e-mail and appointments to the left, corporate news in the centre topped with the stock price ticker, and a few buttons that launch a series of reports providing all the information an executive needs on demand. One press of a button can reveal the following.
Figure 1: Population Centres and Geography from Public Internet Portal, Overlaid with Pipelines and Offshore Platforms from Commercial Source (IHS Energy, with permission)
- A formatted text document listing the status of facilities that may have a problem, ranked by severity and region. Fonts can change colour according to action taken regarding the issue they are representing. An interactive map can appear in one corner, re-sizing automatically when selected as an access tool, which has a zoom-in option to view details. Even when not touched, the map can keep pace with enquiries, providing geographic context (see Figure 1).
- A spreadsheet detailing the key revenue and expense factors, ranked by market area spread across the globe where the integrated oil companyoperates. Changes in the profitability ratios can be regionalised and offered again as an interactive map, which links the user with the relevant changes in regulations and legislation affecting the oil company across the geographies in which it operates.
- A menu list of up-to-date corporate presentations automatically harvested according to the user’s preference file.
Here is what happens behind the scenes in any multitude of scenarios, using as an example the first formatted text report mentioned above.
- The user clicks the top right-hand button on the computer screen.
- A canned query travels via secure network to the server.
- A script generates automatically and launches several queries.
- One query retrieves engineering data keyed by time and location.
- A second query goes to the geographic database and retrieves the appropriate map data.
- A third query runs calculations on the status of events across facilities.
- Events are ranked by criteria of severity and by geographic location.
- A formatted document lists facilities that need attention, ranked by severity.
- The text document and map travel over the secure network to the user’s desktop.
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