IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Hydrocarbon Accounting Software 2013 Vendor Assessment

IDC MARKETSCAPE

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Hydrocarbon Accounting

Software 2013 Vendor Assessment

Jill Feblowitz

THIS IDC MARKETSCAPE EXCERPT FEATURES: TIETO

IDC MARKETSCAPE FIGURE

FIGURE 1

IDC MarketScape Worldwide Hydrocarbon Accounting Software Vendor Assessment

IN THIS EXCERPT

The content for this paper is excerpted from the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Hydrocarbon Accounting Software 2013 Vendor Assessment, (Doc # EI244538). All or parts of the following sections are included in this Excerpt: IDC Opinion, IDC MarketScape Vendor Inclusion Criteria, Essential Guidance, Vendor Summary Profile, Appendix and Learn More. Figure 1, Figure 2, and Figure 3 are also included.

IDC OPINION

With changes in the way the world conducts oil and gas (O&G) business, hydrocarbon accounting (HCA) applications have to adjust to the new needs of their oil and gas customers. As the industry pursues resources in remote locations and with new partners, there have been new demands on hydrocarbon accounting solutions. Regional business practices and regulatory requirements are constantly changing. The introduction of unconventionals such as shale has seen the proliferation of the number of wells associated with a field and has added to complexity of allocations. The pace of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) requires oil and gas companies to quickly assimilate or spin off assets. The increase in the availability of data from well tests and the potential for workers to input data through mobile devices mean more volume for HCA applications to handle. Finally, oil and gas companies are starting their HCA solutions to provide global visibility into profitability on a well-by-well basis. With so many changes in the market, oil and gas companies are considering enhancements, upgrade, or replacement of their hydrocarbon solutions. This IDC MarketScape is intended to provide oil and gas companies with insight into the current capabilities and future strategies of HCA vendors and guidance on how to approach planning for a new HCA:

 Leading vendors have broad capabilities and a future vision that meet and anticipate the needs of the industry. Leaders have deep functionality built over years in the industry and have made a commitment to invest in research and development to advance the product. These vendors may have a strong portfolio of adjacent products, such as land/lease, GIS, reserves management, and well management that are well integrated with the HCA

applications. Alternatively, leading vendors offer advanced integration through Web services that facilitate quick installation of third-party applications.

 Smaller vendors (especially the newer entrants) have more innovative solutions built on newer technology but lack the financial muscle to go after a diverse buyer base. These vendors are also more likely to have developed functionality to handle unconventional resources or provide HCA as a software as a service (SaaS).

 All vendors acknowledge that being able to accommodate the particularity of all regions is a focus. They are all striving to provide region-specific capabilities that are configurable and are not expensive to adapt and maintain. IDC Energy Insights believes that there is still work to be done in this area.

IDC MARKETSCAPE VENDOR INCLUSION CRITERIA

Vendors included in this study demonstrate a growing business and active HCA development and marketing — at least five oil and gas companies using the application and at least two out of three of the HCA functions: production accounting, revenue accounting, and joint venture accounting. The following vendors are covered:

 CGI  EnergySys  Merrick Systems

 P2 Energy Solutions (P2ES)  SAP

 Tieto

A few vendors are worth mention but are not included in this review. Quorum Business Solutions has a history of providing HCA applications, but the company's focus appears to have shifted in the past two years. The company declined to participate in this IDC MarketScape. Schlumberger's Avocet covers production accounting only. Halliburton Landmark has a product still in use called TOW, but it appears that the company is no longer developing the application. Enertia is another vendor that has been frequently mentioned as active in the small to midmarket. Enertia's main strength is as a financial application, but the company also has a production allocation add-on.

ESSENTIAL BUYER GUIDANCE

The choice of a HCA is an important business decision for O&G companies. It allows a company to perform all the functions required to operate the business — meet contractual obligations and make every revenue cycle, perform valuations, fulfill regulatory reporting obligations, and be fully prepared for audits. The HCA can help manage the business as well. For example, deferments for one oil and gas company are 10-15% of revenue, and the company wants to reduce deferments to 5%. On a yearly basis, that would mean a significant increase in revenue for this company, and it is setting up its HCA to achieve this objective.

Oil and gas companies that are growing rapidly and moving into new regions and/or changing their resource portfolio (including more unconventional, more onshore, more offshore) should consider whether their existing accounting applications are sufficient for their needs. Here are some recommendations on how to approach that decision:

 Start by assessing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of your existing hydrocarbon accounting applications. If you are supporting multiple HCAs that the company has acquired, but not retired, you will be able to reduce your support costs by standardizing on one or two applications.

 Ensure that the decision about hydrocarbon accounting is driven by the needs of the business. Accounting divisions should be heavily involved in developing detailed specifications. It also makes sense to involve production operations and executive management.

 Have a discussion within your organization over what can be gained or lost by having HCA delivered globally as one instance.

 Use this IDC MarketScape to narrow the field of vendors that you will consider. It can provide a useful tool and can be adjusted to weight your company's priorities.

VENDOR SUMMARY PROFILES

This section briefly explains IDC's key observations resulting in a vendor's position in the IDC MarketScape. While every vendor is evaluated against each of the criteria outlined in the Appendix, the description here provides a summary of a vendor's strengths and opportunities.

Tieto: Heavyweight in HCA

Tieto is a professional services firm that also has "industry products," such as hydrocarbon accounting and personnel tracking. The company is headquartered in Finland, with significant experience with oil and gas, especially in the North Sea. In 2012, the telecom, media, and energy vertical made up 27% of sales, and industry products made up 24%. The company has recently increased staffing levels and opened a development and services center in India. Tieto is a Leader in this IDC MarketScape.

Tieto's HCA — Energy Components (EC) — has a significant footprint in the oil and gas industry, serving supermajors, majors, and national oil companies in all regions. The company has extended EC

beyond upstream by including functionalities for nominations and pipeline management in the midstream. The next release of EC version 11 is due out in 2014 and includes an operator client for mobile devices and offline work in the field, configuration and regulatory reporting packages for rapid deployment, dashboards that can be personalized, and a new central system administration module. According to Tieto, in 2017, EC will be an off-the-shelf/enterprise cloud solution, including packaged productivity services.

Strengths

A major strength of EC is that it is capable of addressing accounting and regulatory requirements in multiple regions. With the release of EC 11 in 2014, the regional configuration is expected to be easier, especially important for the United States and Canada that have complex requirements. In this version, EC will have even more extensive coverage of North American requirements. This is attractive for a global oil and gas company that wants to establish global governance and standardization while still meeting region-specific requirements. The ideal from an IT support perspective would be to have EC delivered as one instance. Tieto's EC tends to be more expensive than its competitors', especially in implementation, but the general agreement of Tieto's customers are that they are paying "money for value."

As a services firm, Tieto's professional services experience in the oil and gas industry has helped the company to understand where hydrocarbon accounting fits in the technology stack for production. As a services company, Tieto can help its customers look beyond the transactional aspects of HCA to optimizing production. For example, if 50 wells are down, how should an oil company prioritize efforts on the most profitable wells? Tieto's experience has also helped with the development of adjacent applications that are now being offered as modules of EC — transport, sales, and revenue.

Opportunities

Tieto has recently taken a new approach to sales and marketing. Two developments that will please customers are the movement from centralized sales out of Norway to a regional approach with executives responsible for the product in multiple geographies. Tieto has also recently implemented new account management, sales, and engagement processes. There is a push toward developing alliances and strategic partnerships. This will be attractive to large oil and gas companies that want to see Tieto expand the bench of systems integrators for Energy Components. With a development and services center in India, watch for whether reduced costs will be reflected in implementation projects, license, and maintenance fees.

APPENDIX

Reading an IDC MarketScape Graph

For the purposes of this analysis, IDC divided potential key measures for success into two primary categories: capabilities and strategies.

Positioning on the y-axis reflects the vendor's current capabilities and menu of services and how well aligned the vendor is to customer needs. The capabilities category focuses on the capabilities of the company and product today, here and now. Under this category, IDC analysts will look at how well a vendor is building/delivering capabilities that enable it to execute its chosen strategy in the market. Positioning on the x-axis, or strategies axis, indicates how well the vendor's future strategy aligns with what customers will require in three to five years. The strategies category focuses on high-level decisions and underlying assumptions about offerings, customer segments, and business and go-to-market plans for the next three to five years.

IDC MarketScape Methodology

IDC MarketScape criteria selection, weightings, and vendor scores represent well-researched IDC judgment about the market and specific vendors. IDC analysts tailor the range of standard

characteristics by which vendors are measured through structured discussions, surveys, and interviews with market leaders, participants, and end users. Market weightings are based on user interviews, buyer surveys, and the input of a review board of IDC experts in each market. IDC analysts base individual vendor scores, and ultimately vendor positions on the IDC MarketScape, on detailed surveys and interviews with the vendors, publicly available information, and end-user experiences in

an effort to provide an accurate and consistent assessment of each vendor's characteristics, behavior, and capability.

Market Definition

Hydrocarbon accounting consists of processes and applications that allocate products (oil, gas, water, and specific gas components) back to origination, based on their disposition. These systems handle production accounting, revenue accounting, joint venture accounting, production sharing contracts, and component allocation. Hydrocarbon accounting applications are used primarily by production and revenue accountants and management for monitoring allocations, as well as finance, production, operations, and transportation. Figure 2 displays the hydrocarbon accounting application and adjacent applications and integrations.

FIGURE 2

Hydrocarbon Accounting and Adjacent Applications and Integrations

Source: IDC Energy Insights, 2013

Oil and gas companies are gearing up to make investment in hydrocarbon accounting, so this report is timely for those companies (see Figure 3).

FIGURE 3

Intention of U.S. Oil and Gas Companies to Invest in Hydrocarbon Accounting

Software in 2015

Q. Looking ahead to 2015, which statement will best describe your organization's strategy for hydrocarbon accounting?

Base = respondents whose knowledge covers software and oil and gas Notes:

This survey is managed by IDC's Quantitative Research Group. Use caution when interpreting small sample sizes less than 100. Data is weighted by employment by industry and business size.

Source: IDC's 2013 U.S. Vertical IT and Communications Survey, May 2013

IDC Energy Insights forecasts that the global market for hydrocarbon accounting software will grow from $421 million in 2011 to $730 million in 2016, at an 11.6% CAGR. This growth is based primarily on the adoption of hydrocarbon accounting applications on a global basis, mergers and acquisitions, and the desire to consolidate and standardize, as well as growth in unconventional resources with the involvement of multiple suppliers and more complex allocations.

LEARN MORE

Related Research

 Vendor Assessment: Selected Oil and Gas Vendor Profiles (IDC Energy Insights #EI242595, August 2013)

 Pivot Table: U.S. Oil and Gas Solutions Market Share and Forecast Guide, 2013, Version 2 (IDC Energy Insights #EI241065, May 2013)

 Technology Selection: Do You Know Where Your Oil and Gas Dollar Is? (IDC Energy Insights #EI232154, December 2011)

Synopsis

This IDC Energy Insights report represents a vendor assessment model called the IDC MarketScape. This study is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the characteristics that assess a vendor's current and future success in the said market or market segment and provide a measure of their ascendancy to become a leader or maintain a leadership. More importantly, this IDC MarketScape helps the buyers of hydrocarbon accounting (HCA) applications evaluate which vendors in this space will be a close fit to their needs.

"As the oil and gas industry pursues resources in remote locations and with new partners, there have been new demands on hydrocarbon accounting solutions," according to Jill Feblowitz, vice president, IDC Energy Insights. "The industry is looking to hydrocarbon accounting applications to integrate well with other applications, accommodate field data capture, scale to increasing data volumes and more complex transaction, adapt easily to regional regulations and business practices, and provide visibility to the profitability of the wells in its global portfolio."

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For more than 48 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading

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