| If all the players process similar data, why not reap the benefit of shared services center including testing the concept of software as a service. The information security global standards are capable of providing at security at a finer granularity that could allow players to share applications, infrastructure and tools. Such practices are becoming common across countries having a number of national oil companies (owner by government). The types of shared services centers and the kind of services should be defined after assessing the context.
However the following types of SSC concepts could be considered:
Infrastructure services: Like common data centre, unified disaster recovery centers etc fall under this category
BPO: Organizations outsourcing part of processes like revenue accounting, payables, payroll could consider such types of BPO, where the service provider could bring in technology and human capital required to perform the services
Hybrid BPO: Some of the oil & gas companies might prefer to use the services of experienced teams to perform transaction processing on their behalf. The hybrid model allows a unique definition of usage of technology and skills combination that are specific to a situation
Value chain SSC: Some of the SSC could focus on providing services to all the players in the value chain of a particular large oil & gas operator. |