Oil and Gas Blog

Azure and creating cloud based offerings in Oil and Gas

oilandgasteam — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:57:00 GMT

iStore was on had at PDC yesterday to show off their new Azure cloud based offering. Check out Hanu's blog post on the announcement.

We'll be able to provide value to our customers right away because Windows Azure helps us eliminate a lot of operational hurdles." - Tod Magstadt, Strategic Planning and Project Manager.

Yes, you can have it all

oilandgasteam — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:14:00 GMT

The Oil and Gas team at Microsoft thinks that our solution approach means that you, our customers, don’t have to choose between leading-edge industry technology, ease of use and value—you can have it all.

Our approach

We partner with the industry service providers that you already work with for the oilfield technology and industry-specific solutions, and integrate and deliver those solutions on the platform that everybody already knows—Microsoft.

Why is this approach important?

Because in the new global, inter-dependent economy that will continue to rely predominantly on oil and gas for the vital energy to keep the engine running for decades to come, we need quantum leaps in productivity so that the industry can keep up with energy demand—especially challenging in this most turbulent economy of our lifetime.

How does this approach deliver?

You get the leading-edge industry apps from our partners—the experts in oil and gas industry solutions—to meet the technological challenges. Unlike some of our software company competitors that try to develop their own proprietary solutions, we work closely with the industry partners that our customers already rely on.

Ease of use and increased productivity comes from Microsoft technology.

Our platform to enable business performance, Microsoft SharePoint, is quickly becoming a quasi-standard in the industry for collaboration, information management, corporate performance and social networking—which is crucial in helping people to connect across domains and company boundaries to jointly make better decisions faster.

New Microsoft technologies like “presence” and collaboration let you know who the right people are, if they’re available, and then connect you with them immediately, right from the app, with a click of a button.

Our partners are integrating these and other Microsoft technologies right into their apps, many of which are built on Microsoft development technologies to make integration that much easier.

And more value comes from building on the Microsoft platform that most companies already have in place. We’re also supporting global alliance partners in developing “next generation” apps on the Microsoft stack. These efforts will further help to integrate these industry-specific partner solutions with Microsoft technologies to maximize productivity and value.

We want to hear from you. Let us know what you think about this approach and your experience with these solutions.

(And check out the really futuristic Microsoft productivity technologies that Chris Van Dyke referred to in his earlier post and the video on the Office Lab website.)

- Dr. Albrecht (Ali) Ferling, Worldwide Managing Director, Oil and Gas Industries

Windows 7 RTM and Windows 7 XP Mode

oilandgasteam — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:15:00 GMT

A couple big events happened the last few days. Window 7 was released to manufactoring and the Release Candidate of Windows 7 XP mode was released.

We have already talked about Windows 7 again but XP mode is something new to discuss. XP mode is a new approach to compatability to older legacy applications. With Windows 7 and XP mode, you will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 and enjoy all the new enhancements. If you have an application that does not work in Windows 7, you will be able to install and run the application within a Windows XP virtual machine in a very transparent manner.

With the advances in CPUs, chipsets and virtualization technologies the last few years, Virtualization will be a big topic in the future and will have a big place in everyday computing.

Windows 7 RTM
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3445

Windows XP Mode RC released
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3628

Facebook for the Enterprise: the oil and gas industry goes social

oilandgasteam — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:59:00 GMT

E&P Magazine's Website posted an article this week that originated from my blog post back in December 2008 on Social networking and Oil and Gas. You can read the article here.

Chris Van Dyke

Windows 7 RC is available

oilandgasteam — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:32:00 GMT

In case you missed it yesterday, Microsoft made available the Windows 7 Release Candidate for public consumption. What this means for you is you can go and download, install and test drive Windows 7 until June 2010.

I have been using it since February. I even did my Keynote demonstrations at Global Energy Forum and OSI's User conference using Windows 7. I have been very happy with it so far. Here are a few quick things you should look at:

For personal use:

Home Group - Better organization of your personal media across multiple home computers
Libraries - Better organization of all your documents
Desktop personalization - I like how you can have a Theme with multiple background images. The images rotate during the day

For work:

Faster and better 64 bit - People who have adopted the 64 bit OS are starting to see faster and more scalable software. Best example I have seen so far in Oil and Gas is Schumberger's 64 Bit Petrel.
The new Taskbar

There is a lot more I could say about quicker and snappier but really it may be more interesting for you to take a test drive and tell me what you think

Chris Van Dyke

Productivity Future Vision

oilandgasteam — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:32:00 GMT

A new video has been posted on Office Labs (link) showing some ideas about how future workers will work and collaborate. It’s a good video to watch to get you creative juices flowing. Not just to see the Microsoft vision behind how people will be working but to see how emerging technologies could be used in the future.

Many times we see a new technology introduced and we fail to capitalize on it because we do not integrate it with other processes/technologies in the workplace. Personally, I have struggled for a while on why someone would want to integrate a video projector into a cell phone. In the video, we see a GPS equipped cell phone with a built-in projector gives its owner directions to the gate at the airport terminal. Simple idea, but think of all the possibilities. Workers on a offshore platform being able to project and overlay schematics on piece of equipment or visual notification when a worker enters a safety zone.

Taking a few steps back to the present day, think of our portal and how we can start marrying it with other technologies in the workplace. Using social networking technologies to capture knowledge gained during the troubleshooting process. Bringing in location based services to bring relevant alerts and information to the nearest worker. The more we learn and try to integrate our technologies, the more value we will get from our existing investments by having our systems surface information in a timelier manner.

Chris Van Dyke

First-ever Oil & Gas Industry Collaboration Survey 2009 results posted

oilandgasteam — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:02:00 GMT

At the Global Energy Forum in February, Microsoft and Accenture released the results of the Oil and Gas Collaboration Survey 2009. The goal of the survey was to find out the effectiveness of collaboration technology to increase productivity and increase knowledge transfer for Oil and Gas industry professionals. The significant findings were:

Although more than 40 percent of oil and gas professionals view social media technologies as important to enhance collaboration and boost productivity, implementation of these technologies is underway in the companies of only one out of four respondents.
Respondents believe these tools can play a vital role in enhancing collaboration within critical oilfield initiatives, including project management, sourcing scarce resources and sharing health and safety advisories.
These professionals also stated that social media technologies can help stem the flow of exiting knowledge from workers who are approaching retirement age.
Slightly over one-third of respondents said their company cultures were aligned with the adoption of these new social media tools. Another 50 percent said their companies were receptive but not proactive to adopt them.
Respondents saw the following common barriers to the implementation of these technologies -- company management doesn’t see knowledge capture as important, older workers don’t typically use digital knowledge-sharing capabilities, and current information is siloed on individual personal computers and spreadsheets.

What to do about Oil Price?

oilandgasteam — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:24:00 GMT

My last visit to this chart in November showed oil at $60/ bbl, and I had thought we were near the lows. Since then prices dropped an astounding 42% to a low of $35/ bbl. Having recovered to $48 yesterday, on today's inventory numbers U.S. crude for February delivery fell $5.95, or 12.3%, to settle at $42.63 a barrel. Wednesday's decline was the biggest percentage drop since Sep. 24, 2001, following a week of massive oil price drops after the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks.

So again volatility is unsettling the ability of the industry to see a bottom that they can rely on for making capital investment decisions. With futures market prices in Contango (higher future month delivery price than current month delivery price), you are well paid to store inventory for later delivery. Therefore I do not think that the current prices are sustainable, and will recover to the $60 – $80 range by mid-year. However for conservative production companies I see an economic reference price in the range of $35 - $40/ bbl for assessing project returns.

SO, the focus remains cost control, and cash flow. Systems need to be able to support portfolio management decisions on well shut ins, and maintaining liquidity.

Merger and acquisition activity will emerge from this market, as cash flow shortfalls squeezes liquidity. Now is the time to gear up for your teams and systems for M&A due diligence.

What is you view? Feed back is appreciated

Michael Sternesky - Oil & Gas Industry Development Manager.

What can the next generation teach the industry?

oilandgasteam — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:33:00 GMT

Much has been made about the coming great crew change and the loss of a generation worth of knowledge and experience. But this age of technology has blessed (or cursed) us with another dilemma, how do we consume the vast amounts of technology generated in the field? Data is captured in various forms across the enterprise that when properly visualized together, can present a clear picture of what is going on to users around the globe. The problem is our current applications and visualization technologies do not have the ability to represent the many layers of data available to the user.

The answer may be found in how the next generation has leveraged Social Networking to stay in contact with the various people that come into their lives. In the past, people relied on face to face, over the phone, and written communication to keep in touch with those around them. The problem with this is as your circle of friends increases, you are faced with gathering and sifting through more and more information so you can stay up to date. Social Networking helps to solve this by creating an environment where users can “Manage by Exception” their relationships with people in their networks. I can log into my favorite Social Networking site and quickly skim through the events that my friends are posting on the site. I may not care about the former classmate whose four year old is finally potty trained, but my former teammate who posts a rumor about a classmate’s police blotter may catch my eye. Social Networking sites allow me to query back and to investigate all the glorious details and my queries and his responses are captured for all that come after me to see.

How does this apply in Oil and Gas? I wonder, can we take this phenomena and apply it to the data we see in our daily lives? Rather than start my day by flipping through charts and graphs showing daily production from my wells, can I see a single page where my wells and fields tell me the highlights of their day yesterday? Ahh, well A-3’s production has dropped and well head pressure has risen significantly. I then search and see my buddy Matt had similar issues in the past with A-3. I can see the actions he took and even instant message with him to get his opinions.

How do you feel about applying social networking into the workplace this way? Or is it just this generation’s Cabbage Patch kid, leg warmers, and Member’s Only jacket. Any comments you have would be appreciated.

Chris Van Dyke

Schlumberger Cuts profit outlook - Watch for other Oil Field Service Cos to follow

oilandgasteam — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:02:00 GMT

Yesterday Schlumberger said its 2008 profit would fall below expectations. The slowdown in economic activity is being felt in the oil field services and machinery companies that support drilling activity, as they dial down activity in response to weakening demand for energy, and a dramatically reduced revenue forecast for 2009. Natural gas is in oversupply in North America, so the next 8 weeks of weather related draw downs will have a big impact on drilling plans in North America for Q1 2009. International drilling projects seem to be holding up for now, as they are harder to defer or delay because of long term contracts in place.

Look for serious cuts in Oil & Gas company 2009 Capital spending plans this month into early January. 15 to 40% are the range of cuts I expect to see. This may further depress the oil field service company order backlog, generating further operating budget cuts in Q1.

Does this view match your own? Please comment.

Credit Capacity is Top Financial Concern of Energy CFOs, According to BDO Seidman, LLP Study - Watch for more M&A activity in 2009

oilandgasteam — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:50:00 GMT

I saw the following article on issues of concern to Oil & Gas CFO's ....

Credit Capacity is Top Financial Concern of Energy CFOs, According to BDO Seidman, LLP Study
© Business Wire 2008

2008-12-02 20:36:01 - See article @ http://www.pr-inside.com/credit-capacity-is-top-financial-concern-r946160.htm

Summary

57 % of CFOs at U.S. oil and gas exploration and production companies say that "credit capacity restraints, including access to capital" will be their greatest financial challenge in 2009,

21% think falling oil or natural gas prices will be the biggest challenge.

72% expect the economic crisis in the U.S. to impact their ability to borrow money or extend bank debt in 2009.

My reaction..

It is interesting to me that many see increased demand as the key to restoring pricing to its previous high level. The recession has been designated as starting in Jan of 2008. Experts seem to think this will be a 24 to 36 month recession, so we will not see an uptick in demand until 2010. That my be too long for some O&G companies that are not well financed.

I expect that we will see much merger and acquistion activity in 2009, as less well capitalized companies sell out to stronger rivals. I also expect that many will again begin to explore for reserves on Wall Street, as the cost/ risk profile will be compelling.

As always your feedback is welcome.

What is the short term future of Alternative Energy?

oilandgasteam — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:58:00 GMT

We all know we need alternative energy solutions in the next decade. However, I am wondering what the impact of energy price reductions are on current investments in alternative energy. Is this going to cause companies to stomp on the brakes in this category until we get a rally in energy prices to the $70 - $90/ bbl range?? I think so, but looking for your view.

Mike Sternesky

Oil & GAS Budget Cuts in 2009 - smart Implementation

oilandgasteam — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:44:00 GMT

I am hearing about CAPEX budget cuts ranging from 15% to 40% for next year. The question on my mind is-- How these cuts being implemented? Are companies going through a rigorous process, looking at the impact of cuts on a consistent basis? Are you looking at the impact of delay vs. cancel? Or are blunt instruments ( like system wide uniform budget cuts) being used. Is there a better way with measurement of the impact of such cuts against the Net Present Value (NPV) being created? OR is there a measure of business unit capability created vs. the value of the capability? How can we be smart about the selection and re-qualification of projects in order to generate the cuts being demanded?

Looking for your input

Oil Price reverses yet again

oilandgasteam — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:03:00 GMT

Front month crude oil prices increased 9.2% today. Such a huge daily movement shows once again the need for agile business systems that can anticpate the risks, and capture these environmental factors, and turn them into business oportunities.

Managing an Oil & gas Company through an Economic Downturn -What actions are needed?

oilandgasteam — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:19:00 GMT

Set in motion by the global financial markets collapse, oil and gas markets have suffered a huge setback since July of 2008, with commodity prices dropping 66% in just four months. Energy demand is falling in all sectors of the global economy, caused by falling economic activity. As of November 15th, Equity markets in the US and Europe have fallen approximately 40% YTD. The lack of credit availability, and the seizing of credit markets, has had an immediate impact on economic activity in all sectors, at all levels. Toyota announced a 56% reduction in auto sales in the current quarter, the worst decline in 18 years. On November 6th, The European Central Bank cut interest rates for the second time in less than a month as the region's economy suffers its worst slump in 15 years. The rate of decline in economic activity is one of the steepest seen since the 1973-74 recession. These are signals of the beginning of a deeper and longer recession than we have seen in the last 35 years. These turbulent times require fast and immediate reaction. Business agility is required to survive and thrive.

Supply and demand balance points are now unknown, causing the recent unprecedented price volatility. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in October announced that its members will trim crude output by 1.5 million barrels a day from Nov. 1 in an attempt to stem falling oil prices. It is rumored that an additional cut will be suggested at OPEC’s December meeting. The effectiveness of this action has not been felt yet and OPEC has not been effective in policing cutbacks among its members in declining markets. Therefore, producers are re-evaluating current CAPEX in pipeline vs. reference prices used to justify them. With global demand unknown, investments decisions for new supply must be re-evaluated.

Oil field services companies will work off backlog, but they need to be better able to match order intake with resources. Hiring slowdowns need careful management. Prices could rise again by the time the current backlog impacts capacity.

As energy company stock prices drop, we expect to see an uptick in mergers and acquisitions of companies with strong and proven reserve positions in politically stable host countries. The risk / reward balance is tilting towards the purchase of whole companies to replace reserves produced. The last three years of rising commodity prices have vastly improved the balance sheets of the major oil companies, and they are now in a position to use that capital for “once in a generation” buying opportunities.

The following sections review actions being undertaken and the informational needs they generate.

Upstream Exploration & Production

First and foremost is the need to re-examine the exploration and exploitation projects in the current capital expenditure portfolio. This requires the ability to quickly rescore the internal rates of return while resetting underlying hydrocarbon reference pricing and assumptions on development costs. Projects already underway will be analyzed to see the impact of delaying or mothballing the project versus accepting the penalties incurred. Similarly, potential new projects will also be reviewed and re-evaluated. These are critical steps in slowing the outflow of capital until commodity markets improve.

Risk re-evaluations and improved risk controls are required with new risk management scenarios considered. Such evaluations call for improved modeling capabilities for evolving business environments to increase the speed at which companies can test business models against new scenarios.

A specific example would be the modeling of production sharing agreements. The impact of sudden price spikes in a production sharing agreement may enable a quick return of investment but trigger a reduction in the proportion of production allocated to the company operating the concession. This shackles the operator to the risks of maintaining the operations of the project for a relatively low share of the overall production and reserves. Modeling these scenarios with the recent experience of ultra high volatility will provide insights into the business model modifications that are going to be required.

Optimization of production curves will be required to ensure that every well and reservoir is being optimized for maximum recovery. During the past year, when prices were much higher, some companies were optimizing on production rate to take advantage of the unusual market conditions. Now producers need to revert to maximizing the total recovery over the long term, even if it means slowing current production. Optimization on this scale will require more use of real time surveillance data integrated with data from other disciplines such as geology and petrophysics.

Downstream Refining and Marketing

The need for higher levels of business agility in downstream refining has never been stronger. Refining margins suffered during the run-up in crude prices as margins were compressed by higher input costs. Higher prices also reduced volumes sold as consumers changed the way they traditionally used gasoline. Advances are needed in forecasting, production operations, maintenance, logistics and Health Safety and Environmental (HSE) compliance.

The reduction in fuel consumption due to high prices is forging a new requirement for higher accuracy in forecasting product demand. The impact of improper demand forecasting is higher costs from the disposal of excess product on the wholesale market reducing margins. The inclusion of more current and more predicative information is needed. Greater use of real-time data from third party sources can help in development of a more accurate product demand forecast in specific regions. Aspentech, the leading provider of linear programming models for production planning and optimization, has recently upgraded their flagship product, known as PIMS, to operate on Microsoft’s High Performance Cluster server, dramatically reducing the run time for complex models from days and hours to minutes, increasing the opportunity to use more sophisticated analysis in every day refining decisions, improving results. Improvements in forecasting enables highly targeted production, operating at the optimum supply / demand balance point.

Making data visible across the refinery and filtering relevant role-based data into actionable business intelligence improves the productivity of every worker, including mobile workers. Predictive tools can improve equipment uptime availability which drives down costs. The key is the simplicity with which such solutions can be implemented and integrated into their backbone enterprise systems.

Asset optimization and asset integrity is another area targeted for cost improvement. With the cost of telemetry continuing to drop, more refinery equipment can be cost effectively monitored in real-time. The struggle then is to deal with the tsunami of data that results and filtering that data into information that can be transformed into action. The way forward here is Automated workflow management, which is integral to improving several key activities in the refinery, from shift change handovers to suggesting improvements for optimizing processing unit operating parameters. Complex workflows requiring the use of several screens on SAP can be reduced to a single form that feeds and updates underlying ERP systems improving the efficiency of all users.

We need to do a better job in managing major capital projects, such as refinery turnarounds, when whole units are shut down for major periodic maintenance. These projects require new tools, such as real-time status reporting, to optimize equipment shutdown and acceleration of the deployment of leased equipment compressing schedule times whenever possible. The combination of unified communications capabilities (including seamless integration with mobile devices) combined with Project Portfolio Server can help identify opportunities to reduce down-time by compressing turnaround activities, possibly saving millions of dollars.

Continuous improvement in health, safety and environmental procedures is important in any economic state. RFID tagging brings a host of capabilities important to HSE procedures. These capabilities can provide improved operator lead asset integrity /maintenance programs to geospatial presence awareness for vastly improved startup and shutdown safety. Microsoft standards-based RFID infrastructure provides plug-and-play device compliance, automation and business process transformation.

Supply and Trading

Supply, distribution and trading are complex supply chains. To optimize these systems requires the ability to synthesize internal conditions with external market drivers. In these troubled times the volatility of markets has increased exponentially and the ability to react faster than the competition can make the difference between profit and loss. The ability to model trading opportunities in an easy to use canvas like Excel, yet manage the parameters of such opportunistic activity with enterprise risk controls is now available via excel server. No longer are uncontrolled spreadsheets a risk. Updates of risk models can be instantly made available to the trading organization sharing best practices and improving risk management compliance.

Risk management in the supply and trading area is accomplished by measuring each net inventory position, and subjecting each position to possible price fluctuations based on probability of their occurrence, (both up and down), and measuring the possible loss exposure from maintaining such positions over a specific time horizon. Such a measure is called Value At Risk ( “VaR”). Ideally, positions are managed to be fairly neutral, unless a specific trading exposure is allowed. The recent volatility of all markets has put increased emphasis on this technique. The VaR model has usually been run overnight to measure daily risk exposure. Now there is a desire to run this model more often, but users are constrained because many compute environments cannot run these models quickly enough. Our high performance computing platform running on Windows Compute Cluster Server is ideally suited for this task. Models can be run in a fraction of the time, allowing greater insight on the risk of evolving stock positions, and allowing mitigating action to be taken within the trading day.

With Microsoft tools modeling of blending opportunities can be quickly vetted, and instantly turned into work flows, increasing the agility of the organization to react to fast moving changes in the business environment. It is not enough to be able to spot a trading opportunity; one has to be agile enough to capture the opportunity through superior execution. Microsoft is the platform enabling this operational excellence.

Corporate Services/ Mergers & Acquisitions

Knowledge capture and best practice dissemination remains a major challenge to the entire industry with the impending loss of a significant share of the most experienced people. According to the Society of Petroleum Engineers, 50% of their existing global membership of some 67,000 professionals will retire in the next ten years. There is not enough time or talent available to replace the capability of this generation of professionals in this time frame. The need to capture the institutional knowledge of this retiring generation remains a high priority for most large companies. This imperative will not be impacted by a relatively short term price dislocation. Microsoft has the platform to capture knowledge, publish best practices, and transform these best practices into flexible workflows to guide the next generation of oil & gas professionals. This capability will not only enable knowledge to be transferred, but will make it widely available in expert systems who can promote consistent high quality decision making.

Extraordinary times can also create opportunity. Many companies used the last 4 years of rising commodity prices as opportunities to reduce debts and bolster their balance sheets. For companies with strong balance sheets, now is a time of great opportunity to buy reserves on Wall Street through acquisitions of whole companies. Many companies with significant oil & gas reserves in politically stable countries have reserves valued at or below current replacement cost and are attractive to companies struggling to replaces existing production with new discoveries.

The ability to quickly integrate an acquisition into the enterprise, which can save millions of dollars, is an additional agility factor required in these troubled times. technology can enable the faster integration of an acquired company’s assets with overlapping assets within the enterprise. Using web based systems, and service oriented architecture, a virtual consolidation of the underlying enterprise systems can be quickly achieved at the presentation layer, pulling data from the different legacy systems in one unifying view. This virtual consolidation enables the quick integration of overlapping assets with consistent work processes, resulting in faster realization of economies of scale and elimination of redundancies, and gives the acquisition integration teams more time to thoughtfully achieve harmonization of the legacy business systems. This agility results in a higher return on investment and an improved operating performance.

Oil Field Services

We have seen increasing consolidation in the oil field services companies. As with production companies, the last four years have seen profits levels for oil field services (OFS) firms increase exponentially. New relationships are being forged with national oil companies, allowing faster organic growth. Growth here will continue, but the impact of the global economic slowdown will surely be felt. Cutbacks in the capital budgets of major oil companies on the order of magnitude of 10-20 % or more are anticipated. Many majors have already announced cutbacks. Pricing pressures will again be introduced by the production companies as competition for work to fill newly created capacity surfaces.

Downward pricing pressures will require a new attention to costs. This price cost push dynamic will require new levels of innovation to stay competitive. New, more effective technologies will deliver the business outcomes desired, with more efficiency and accuracy. New systems and capabilities are required to track innovative ideas through a robust vetting process, ensuring that the most promising and profitable come to market. Ideation is a competitive advantage to those who can develop it as an enterprise capability.

Service delivery and customer relationship management are also key capabilities to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business. In times like these, services companies are doubling down on their efforts to build strong relationships with fewer but stronger customers. Management of customer intelligence and opportunity requirements gathering, through product or service delivery, billing, and collection, are all opportunities to differentiate providers from the competition. Much of this process involves the integration of information from both structured systems and unstructured documents.

Increasing the focus on working capital management, credit and collection is also required in today’s fragile financial environment. Credit, even for good customers, may be suddenly cut off because their underlying financial institutions are troubled, creating an unexpected liquidity crisis.Customer relationship management (CRM) systems can help improve intelligence gathering on customer financial condition and provides a platform for improving order execution and service delivery. Additionally, A robust reference architecture for integration of work order management (including field data capture) with revenue billing systems reduce cost and working capital in both inventory and receivables by increasing inventory turnover and reducing days sales outstanding.

What to do now?

Netting it all out, the last 3 years were grow-grow-grow, drill-drill-drill. in our haste to grow we drove up costs, and let our processes get sloppy. A new era of austerity is upon us, But as as the new Chief of Staff for President Obama said, “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” “They are opportunities to do big things.” We can take this time to dramtically improve our business capabilites, and sharpen our skills. When the economy recovers, we will be that much stronger.

This is my first post- they will be more brief in the future, but I would like to get your feedback on this information. Was it useful? Do you agree? Any other perspectives?

Regards

Mike Sternesky