Significant Growth of Business Analytics & Intelligence in the Middle East

There has been an unprecedented growth in the business intelligence industry in the Middle East. Oil and gas corporations in the Fortune 500 list have been taking advantage of business intelligence software and providers of analytics. In fact, large corporations based in Gulf Region countries are advised to deal with the challenge of Big Data in leveraging escalating volume of data to push business changes and economic progress.

Exxon Mobil

Exxon Mobil opted for mySap.com (e-business software integration tool) as the company’s core support for its global business infrastructure program. This platform was meant to firm up systems for the merged companies and enhance business processes for approximately 100,000 personnel all over the world. SAP is considered the primary provider of inter-enterprise software solutions. On the other hand, Exxon Mobil is a principal global petroleum and petrochemicals enterprise.

SAP gives ExxonMobil a flexible IT infrastructure system that supports future requirements. Both Exxon and Mobil have been loyal clients of SAP since the eighties and made upgrades from SAP R/2 architecture to SAP R/3 or the former enterprise resource planning software. Investing in SAP helped the company to maintain its most impressive business performance for multiple business lines. It also strengthened and upgraded all systems as ExxonMobil intensified synergies globally and rationalized business processes.

SAP was responsible for hooking up ExxonMobil’s global operations and reduced business processing costs significantly. All over the world, it made use of mySAP.com (Oil and Gas) solution to handle diversified and intricate business procedures from refinery to consumers.

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell is acknowledged as one of the biggest oil and gas firms in the world in terms of revenues along with ExxonMobil and Chevron. It has developed the concept of data-driven oilfields to reduce capital costs for drilling which is the principal expense in this business. Royal Dutch Shell also utilizes Big Data to ensure its equipment will operate properly and avoid unnecessary breakdown.

Sensors have been installed in machines that collect data for efficiency and reduction of overhead. Shell is integrated vertically. Hence, it is concerned with every process from packaging to selling. Complex algorithms consider the cost of fuel production along with diverse data including economic gauges and weather patterns to identify demand, allot resources and establish pump prices.

As a SAP client, Shell installed SAP ERP applications to sustain core operations for its 650 companies worldwide. It streamlined and regulated business processes concentrating on marketing efforts by means of its SAP upgrade worldwide. Technical personnel can access systems using common data and processes as well as uniform reporting techniques. SAP experts use SAP Cloud strengthened further by SAP HANA as well as SAP software for Predictive Analysis, SCREEN PERSONAS and FIORI. The main thrust of the partnership between the two is to enhance systems and extend functionality.

Conoco Philips

This top Fortune 500 Corporation uses a lot of analytics to improve production of natural gas. Conoco Philips has taken data analytics to a higher level PLOT which is a custom-made Plunger Lift Optimization Tool which augmented production from over 4,500 natural gas wells by 30 percent. The company acquired large data sets for years was one of the early users of supercomputing. This year, Conoco Philips shifted to advanced analytics across several phases of overseeing energy resources, asset acquisition, oil exploration, development, and operations.

The corporation’s main focus now is to go deeper into physics and employ progressive analytics to wheedle more hydro-carbons out of the soil. In terms of software, analytics platforms include Apache HADOOP which is an open-source framework for software (Java) for distributed processing and storage of exceptionally large data sets. Structured Query Language (SQL), Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) and other analytics tools are also used in this process.

Marathon Oil

Marathon Oil has transitioned from exploration and production to an autonomous upstream oil and gas firm. This, of course, required a substantial refurbishment and transformation of its Information Technology environment. Marathon Oil put into service SAP Net Weaver Business Warehouse which is driven by SAP HANA to attain regular informal reporting, prompt and responsive reporting capacity, and greater than before batch load regularity.

One of SAP’s partners (Deloitte) helped Marathon Oil modify data and improve financial reporting that facilitated transparency, divisibility and user interface. In moving from a completely integrated oil company with downstream operations to an independent (global) exploration and production firm, Marathon Oil Corporation’s technology for financial reporting went through large changes. Marathon Oil continued its focus on financial analysis and cash flow management as well as allowed additional granular details in its monetary reporting systems.

Anadarko Petroleum

2014, April 15, Anadarko Petroleum Corporations allowed the integration of Petro DE’s cloud-based decision engine technology to the company’s workflow. Petro DE maximizes the value of staff and data by integrating quick data mining and simple visual analytics with real-time collaboration. Petro DE ensures Virtual Private Accelerated Cloud or VPAC for companies, like Andarko that seeks to retain proprietary data behind their firewall. It utilizes uses patent pending technology to guarantee that integration and analysis turns out to be uncomplicated and fast.

Indeed, all these will show that business intelligence and analytics have grown extensively in the Middle East where multinational corporations are operating.