With the large parts of the oil and gas industry now working remotely, the basics of many companies' recent digital transformation strategies will be put to the test. For all of the big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, the ability for all employees to access the latest data and software, continue their normal day to day work and provide services to clients all without having access to the usual office IT infrastructure will be key to maintaining near-term revenues.

Some will see very little change to a typical day in the office with daily meetings now taking place on video conferencing tools, cloud-hosted data and software easily accessed and work shared with colleagues and delivered to clients all through an internet connection.

On the flip-side, others may be struggling to access legacy data stored on a USB on a colleagues desk or on servers at the back of office whilst connecting to the software packages, licensed to desktop computers and accessed through a remote connection, means you can have a cup of tea while watching the familiar loading screens.

If companies had not already implemented digital transformation strategies to date, the current events will indicate a need for rapid adoption in order to survive and move forward with terms such as cloud-hosted, API (application programming interface), SaaS (Software as a Service) and DaaS (Data as a Service) all becoming part of the vocabulary of the modern E&P professional.

Whilst we interact with cloud-hosted technologies daily, from online banking to streaming our favourite movies, the oil and gas industry has been slower to adopt this technology. Accenture's 2020 Upstream Oil and Gas Digital Trends​ survey highlights that oil and gas companies are continuing to invest in digital and now, more than ever, will benefit from the cost savings that can be achieved yet there are still hurdles to overcome with security and in-house capability to implement some of the key issues - ​“nearly 60% stated they would look to external providers for assistance”

Here at MapStand, we are a fully ‘cloud-hosted’ business, remote working has always been part of our culture and the way we deliver our products and services to clients. Whether its support calls being answered on the train to work or a new discovery being added from the living room, digital technology has allowed us to be flexible and adaptable whilst still delivering value.

MapStand offers a ​free web-hosted platform​ that allows anyone to view geotagged E&P news and data through a laptop, mobile or tablet. With our commercial DaaS (data as a service) offering through our Enterprise and Hub subscriptions, individuals and companies get increased value as they can access our E&P data through APIs, stream layers directly into their own GIS environment and combine it with their own data to undertake further analysis at a significantly reduced cost to traditional vendors.

The benefits of our cloud-hosted offering can be very impactful to businesses. When software upgrades are made, how do you make sure users have downloaded the latest version and latest security updates. When it comes to data, how do you ensure users across the world have access to and are viewing the same information and not a legacy copy from 6 months ago?

Our cloud-hosted web application is continually updated by our team of developers and improvements are rolled out seamlessly without any downtime or requirements on the end user to upgrade. Through our APIs, our data team continually updates content and with automated twice daily data ingestion, clients will always have the latest data at their fingertips, anywhere in the world, without lifting a finger.

At the end of this pandemic, companies are likely to come out the other side with a very different view on how technology has been adopted to date and how much it can improve their business in future. With oil prices near record lows, E&P companies will be required, more than most, to embrace digital technology in order to cut costs and become more efficient across the E&P lifecycle. Some will flourish whilst some will be left behind as we see greater adoption of low cost, value add, digital technology.

Want to find out more on our free and commercial offerings – Visit​ https://www.mapstand.com/services/​ or sign up to our platform at​ ​https://app.mapstand.com