When we start­ed gath­er­ing our research from SAP cus­tomers in the oil and gas indus­try in late 2019 for this report, we had no idea what kind of dis­rup­tion was com­ing to this busi­ness. Cer­tain­ly, oil and gas com­pa­nies are accus­tomed to fluc­tu­a­tions in oil prices dri­ven by mar­ket demands, pro­duc­tion lev­els, and geopo­lit­i­cal risk — among oth­er fac­tors. But I don’t think many could have pre­dict­ed the first-ever drop to neg­a­tive oil prices in late April 2020. 

What’s Essen­tial for SAP Oil and Gas Customers

Oil prices will, no doubt, rebound once trav­el restric­tions begin to ease and the busi­ness world adjusts to the new rules of oper­a­tion post-COVID-19. But what looks to be a rocky rest of the year will put oil and gas com­pa­nies under pres­sure to make some tough deci­sions about which tech­nol­o­gy projects they will be able to move for­ward with and which ones they will need to put on hold. 

ASUG believes that SAP cus­tomers will have to move for­ward with their most crit­i­cal tech­nol­o­gy ini­tia­tives. And we are see­ing that most SAP cus­tomers across indus­tries are not can­celling their planned tech­nol­o­gy ini­tia­tives yet. The week­ly ASUG Pulse Check survey found that, as of April 24, 48% of respon­dents said they are not can­celling their planned ini­tia­tives and 33% are can­celling just a few planned initiatives. 

Yes, orga­ni­za­tions are work­ing to con­serve cash in any way they can. But the real­i­ty is that tech­nol­o­gy may be the best way for many oil and gas busi­ness­es to sur­vive by mak­ing data-dri­ven deci­sions and by oper­at­ing in the most effi­cient ways possible. 

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Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Hits the Accelerator

SAP oil and gas cus­tomers have told us in our 2019 and 2020 research that they have been work­ing hard to dig­i­tal­ly trans­form. They see this trans­for­ma­tion as a path to bet­ter-qual­i­ty data, auto­mat­ed process­es, a move to the cloud, and change man­age­ment to sup­port the adop­tion of new tech­nol­o­gy across the busi­ness includ­ing in the field. All of these advance­ments have become more impor­tant now than ever. 

Get a Recap of ASUG Oil and Gas Research

We believe there are many use­ful insights in this report that will remain rel­e­vant — even if they more accu­rate­ly reflect what SAP oil and gas cus­tomers will be doing in 2021 and beyond. We encour­age you to find out how your peers are think­ing of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. And we invite you to lis­ten to our on-demand web­cast, The State of the Oil and Gas Indus­try in 2020: A Research Recap, where we caught up with Jen­nifer W. Stevens, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy pro­gram man­ag­er at Marathon Oil Cor­po­ra­tion, on how the busi­ness is using tech­nol­o­gy to remain resilient.

Down­load our com­plete 2020 research report, The State of the Oil and Gas Indus­try. Don’t miss your oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear about trends in the indus­try from oth­er oil and gas SAP cus­tomers at our vir­tu­al expe­ri­ence ASUG Best Prac­tices: SAP for Indus­tries in September.