Today, many companies in the oilfield services indust
ry are looking to grow – and with such favorable market conditions lately, new opportunities seem much more abundant than in recent years. Having managed your way through the challenges the energy services industry has undergone in the past couple years, similar to other service companies in this sector, it’s likely that you want to take advantage of stabilizing commodity prices and increasing demand for your products services. Growing companies are a spin-off of a growing and healthy industry, and as you’re competing for new contracts and growing your service crew – chances are that your oilfield services business will be bigger in a year or two than it is today.
When business is good – you’re so busy managing your different projects and the operations of your services business that the important considerations and steps to ensure that this growth isn’t short lived, and that you are taking steps to grow your business’ profitability into something that is sustainable often gets overlooked.
We’ve done our homework - here are 4 critical steps you can’t afford to skip to ensure your business continues to be a profitable, sustainable organization beyond the boom:
STEP 1: CONSIDER THE BUSINESS YOU HAVE TODAY
Energy services companies tend to be well-run enterprises, led by owners and managers with years or decades of experience. Still, most companies have at least a few areas they’d like to work on. What’s more, if the business isn’t running optimally at its current size, expansion is likely to make things worse, not better. We at VistaVu start by asking: where’s the pain? In other words, what are the operational issues that are costing your company in terms of time lost, money spent or customers less-than-ideally served? When companies are feeling operational pain, we have found that it’s typically from one or more of seven specific factors. To read about the 7 factors of operation pain download our free special report.
STEP 2: CONSIDER THE BUSINESS YOU WANT IN THE FUTURE
Let’s suppose you have the opportunity to expand your business significantly in the coming year. Being awarded this contract could be the best thing that’s happened to your business in awhile, or potentially, one of the worst. That’s because the way you manage and execute this new job will not only determine your new client’s satisfaction, but it arguably could influence existing clients as well. In this make-or-break environment, you need to continue winning more business, achieve exceptional delivery performance, provide great service to your existing customers and maintain or improve your financial margins.
STEP 3: ENSURE YOU HAVE BUSINESS SOFTWARE THAT GROWS WITH YOU
It’s important that the software you use to operate your business isn’t suitable only for the business you have today, or even the business you see tomorrow. Think big, because the future could have something bigger in store than you can see today. The right oilfield services software must allow you to do more and be more than you may have ever imagined.
STEP 4: USE SOFTWARE BUILT FOR YOUR SPECIFIC INDUSTRY
When you started your business you probably began using some basic software applications – maybe a small business accounting package, perhaps a database for storing customer information and likely a few spreadsheets to track the field services side of your business. However, as you’ve grown, you likely have found that these disconnected systems couldn’t talk to each other – leading to bottlenecks and damaged productivity. These systems weren’t designed with the energy services industry in mind, so often they’re bending to meet the unique requirements of businesses in this sector. All in all, not using software built for your industry is a recipe for inefficiency, missed deadlines, lost business opportunities and poor financial margins.
