• Operational safety and compliance
• Optimized and cost-effective supply chain

To achieve this it takes an approach substantially more comprehensive than dozens of different applications and spreadsheet solutions stitched together. Additionally, it requires a pro-active approach that brings offshore and onshore logistics customers and their service providers together to enjoy full-scope logistics spanning air, marine and land operations and infrastructure support.

iLogistics is a comprehensive logistics solution, tailor-made for the upstream oil and gas industry. As an off-the-shelf logistics software that has been proven commercially, iLogistics integrates end-to-end people and material logistics management for global and regional upstream operations.

Offshore operational safety and compliance systems
Safety in the workplace is emerging as one of the key areas of risk management and regulatory compliance in exploration and production companies. Statistics from the industry reveal that for every 10,000 unsafe acts there are 1,000 near misses or incidents that require first aid, 100 restricted work cases requiring medical treatment only, ten lost-time accidents and ultimately one fatality.

This trend is influencing the way the industry looks at traditional systems for monitoring environmental health and safety compliance systems. New generation systems need to ensure that:

• Offshore workers meet adequate training requirements for their offshore duty
• Logistics resources meet required technical compliance before take off
• Materials required for delivery are classified and loaded as per HAZMAT standards
• Efficient emergency evacuation planning is undertaken through all operational phases
• Enterprise-wide visibility is provided into incidents and trends
• Corrective actions can be easily taken during compliance deviations, etc.

iLogistics offers simple and state-of-the-art features that enable oil and gas companies to stay on-track in their effort to establish and implement measures for safety and environmental protection.

Optimized and cost-effective supply-chain logistics management

Upstream offshore and onshore logistics management is challenging due to the rising cost of oil prices, emphasizing the need for cost-effective operations. The importance of optimized logistics management is therefore to be highlighted since it accounts for 15%-20% of the operating expenditure of an oil and gas company. In today’s environment, breakdown of logistics operations even for a single hour can cost the value chain over $1 million, on average.

Large, integrated oil companies incur an operating expenditure of over $30 billion in today’s economic scenario. Even a 1% saving could be $30 million a year. iLogistics is maintainable at a low TCO for such large, integrated oil companies.

iLogistics has delivered over 100% ROI within the first one-and-a-half years of implementation. Supporting sharing of resources, long-term planning options, automation of routine processes, route optimization techniques, etc. are a few key functionalities that have enabled significant reduction in logistics cost and improved operational efficiency.

Integrated people and material logistics management – offshore and onshore
In an article published in the first 2009 issue of WorldExpro, Dirk Kramers (global discipline head of logistics and production supply chain at Shell International E&P) stated that: “There is at present no other system available that connects people and materials movement by aviation, marine and land in one piece of software”.

Both people and material logistics functionalities are designed to function in an integrated fashion and are fundamental to all four modules of the system, named Aviation, Marine, Land and PoB.

All four modules are available as standalone modules and as an integrated system. The system is capable of integrating with a number of systems, including third-party ERP systems such as SAP, JDE, hardware devices such as smart card systems or RFID devices and also back-end technology components such as business intelligence and data-warehouse systems.

Through robust interface capabilities, iLogistics enables oil and gas operators to adopt a collaborative working model with other participants of the value chain such as logistics service providers, material vendors and freight forwarders.

Advantages of integrated logistics software
A few of the key benefits derived by major oil companies who have implemented iLogistics include:

• Improved safety through improving safe movement of people and materials to and from locations
• Reduced risk by responding faster to un-planned events, crisis and incidents
• Optimized cost through efficient management of non-productivity / delays / revenue loss
• Improved planning through better forecasting and more control over resources and materials through optimization
• Increased visibility through comprehensive tracking functionalities

iLogistics is undergoing a number of enhancements, and has the potential to establish itself as a standard in the industry.

1.  Ever increasing Carbon  Footprint
2.  Higher prices of fuel and dependency on foreign nations to meet our need for oil
3.  Traffic congestion - a silent killer of business profits

The significant increase in costs of maintaining personal transportation is forcing citizens to look at alternate modes of transport – not just for long distances but also for short distances. Personal modes of transportation become prohibitive with the increasing price of oil. When citizens move towards shared public transportation, they should be incentivized and offered the same type of rewards that the airline industry offers. This requires Governments to study the best practices in the airline industry and to seriously consider a Customer Loyalty and Relationship Management strategy for citizens using public modes of transportation.

To provide a healthy and comfortable life for its citizens, progressive Governments today are looking at ways to attract travelers to modes of transportation other than airlines / private transportation. For that it is important to recognize and reward such diligent citizens for their role in reducing the emission of green house gases.

How a Government’s view of Loyalty differs from that of an Airline
Loyalty programs are the most evolved in the airline domain. So it is worthwhile to understand the differences between an airline’s view of loyalty and that of a Government.

Airline loyalty is typically characterized by the airline providing miles/points for travel to its customers in turn adding liability to its balance sheet. For an airline, this future liability is a necessary evil that they have to put up with to manage its business today. These miles/points can then be redeemed by their loyalty program members either with the airline or at participating business partners.

Being not for profit entities, Governments have a different need from their loyalty programs. They are interested in increasing the use of alternate modes of transport by making them an attractive and integral part of the lives of their citizens. Progressive Governments realize that they will be successful in bringing about social reforms only if they do not look at it from a profitability angle. However, they would be interested in generating ancillary revenue to fuel projects of public interest.

Government Needs
Many Governments are becoming more and more progressive when it comes to bringing about reforms in Public Transportation. The immediate manifestation of this is the following:

• Consolidated public transport fare systems valid for all modes of public transport
• Roll out of a Smartcard based contactless electronic tickets

Such projects make it easier for citizens to use public transportation. Other than obviating the need to buy multiple tickets for multiple modes of public transport, they also; reduce queues at vending machines, do away with the need of picking the right fare, protect the environment by reducing paper waste and in turn save costs.

The grand vision behind all these initiatives includes the following:

• Increase use of Public Transportation
• Reduce traffic congestion on the roads

How IBS can help achieve this grand vision
Attracting and retaining citizens to its Public Transit System becomes key to achieving this grand vision. This can be achieved by rewarding citizens for their “loyalty” to such shared transportation. A possible form of reward could be RECs (renewable energy certificates) based on a “carbon offset”, which would be calculated by comparing the amount of CO2 that would have been produced, if the citizen would have used a car for travel vs. public transport. RECs can be traded and converted into money.

A comprehensive loyalty management platform is required to manage this.

iLoyal is a new-generation loyalty management platform built by IBS for the 21st century. iLoyal not only covers loyalty administration, but also fully integrates customer feedback management, campaign management, management information and analytics.  Energy Certificates can be configured within iLoyal and these can be made available to citizens who are part of the loyalty programs.

iLoyal Solution Benefits:
Business Agility:

• iLoyal empowers the Government’s Transportation Marketing Department to dynamically define different loyalty programs and reward mechanisms to meet the changing business environment

Enhanced Revenue & Profits:

• iLoyal equips the Government to earn significant revenue by selling “green points” to commercial establishments at a significantly marked-up rate and manage all the related accounting information. The businesses can then award these “green points” to citizens as a way of rewarding them for using any of the businesses products / services that they offer.

Manage Growth:

• iLoyal has been built to manage large numbers of transactions and has the flexibility to cater to today’s as well as future needs with little or no modifications.

IBS’ value proposition to Governments

• IBS has the experience of working with Government organizations on projects for social reforms especially in the transportation sector
• IBS has the consulting expertise to help Governments build and implement their strategy in the area of Transportation Loyalty
• Lower Total Cost of Ownership since iLoyal can be run on commodity hardware and uses new generation non-proprietary technology (Java)
• Phased implementation will reduce risks and aid in the evolution of the end-to-end business processes
• Cost-effective support from off-shore development centers

Conclusion
iLoyal from IBS, will help in putting Governments among an elite group of early adopters that are revolutionizing public transit. With iLoyal, Governments are well on their way to become hubs for technological and business innovation.

As we transition from manual to self-service, and to the promise of unified experience from there, the focus widens from just the customer to the community that surrounds the customer.

CRM as it Stands Today
Today’s CRM systems are focused on the initial ‘C’, the customer. All business functions are geared towards improving the customer’s experience with the business.

However, as they stand today, CRM mostly relies on ‘after the fact’ kind of systems, i.e. they focus more on analytics of past or historical data. Be it an airline or a retailer, all analysis is typically done ‘after’ the passenger has flown or the purchase has been made. And typically this is done once a month or at best once a week. And by that time, your opportunity to serve the customer better has already gone. As is evident, very little is done to influence customer behavior during or before a purchase.

Where does Social Networking Figure in this?
Social networking lends a ‘near real time’ opportunity to manage customer relationships. It provides the ability to leverage the influencing power of a customer’s network on his or her buying decision.

Imagine this. You’re at a retail joint contemplating the purchase of a high value utility item. And as usual, you are stuck between multiple choices. Wouldn’t it be great if you could poll your social network (using your mobile) instantaneously, get feedback on the various options from a trusted group, and make your choice with confidence? Or better still, see a relative ranking of these products and make an informed decision? As a service provider, it would be to your advantage to create communities around your products or offerings, invite and encourage members to join them, and then convert them into loyal customers.

Bridging the Chasm - from Customer to Community
Inducing a customer to make the leap from being just a customer to be a community member is easier than you think. Here are three easy steps to accomplish this:

1. Identify the social media where your customers or prospects are most active
This is where you put on your research caps and do the online hunting of your customers and prospects. What kinds of communities exist? What do people in these communities talk about? Whose voices are heard the most? Not all social networks are relevant to your business. You need to separate the wheat from the chaff and target only those 2-3 sites that have the maximum traction.

A drawback here is that the communities that have the most action are also the ones that are targeted by your competition. So you need to be cognizant of this fact and be prepared to take some negative publicity. A rule of the thumb is to talk about the industry in general and your product offering without downplaying a competitor. The last thing you’d want is a mud-slinging competition.

Create appropriate contact
This is the tricky part. How do you keep the balance between generic talk and product specific marketing? Once again, the golden rule here is to do the generic talk as much as it presents you as an industry thought leader. The product specific marketing pitch is definitely the one that would attract prospective customers. The other thing that you need to do is to keep the community engaged and buzzing about you and your offerings. Starting a discussion or commenting on recent events in your business domain, having some online polls, contests, webinars, and so on are some of the ways to achieve that. You could also have targeted messages - one for your customers, one for your industry movers and shakers, and one for the media. The more your voice is heard the more you are visible, and the more brand recall you get.

Measure success and continuously improve
All this requires time and effort, which translate to cost. And there comes a time when every marketing professional is asked to justify the costs vs benefits. That is when the metrics help. A number of measures can be defined to gauge the success of your online CRM initiatives. Some of them are:

• Quantitative metrics that affect the bottom line
     • Number of sales made
• Quantitative metrics that provide qualitative information on your Image
     • Number of members attracted to your groups
     • Number of page views
     • Number of polls conducted in a year and the participation in it
     • Ranking in the most popular search engines
     • Number of interactions made or comments received in any discussion you started

These metrics should be monitored at regular intervals and should be the drivers of future online strategies.

Conclusion
Clearly, ‘community’ is a powerful and influencing medium. It is the propagator of the Internet’s ‘word of mouth’. The social acceptance of such communities is forcing organizations worldwide to use these networks. A strategic approach as described in this article is required to leverage the social networks and lead them towards an enterprise. A proactive enterprise that embraces such new models of marketing is the one that is sure to survive regardless of the economic ups and downs.

Why BVL is important and more so today?
The current generation lives on Face Book, has a presence on 2nd Life, is never seen without a mobile phone and lives and breathes technology. To this generation, the only thing that would appeal is a unified experience – real-time, on-demand.

A Gartner study (in figure below) attests to the fact that customers expect a much shorter turnaround time from businesses.

Catering to such a customer base means that the time needed for businesses to react has come down drastically. Consequently, business leaders today are under tremendous pressure to make fast decisions – decisions that require information as current as possible. Any delay in the availability of information is therefore not acceptable and could have a catastrophic impact on the business.

What does this mean to CRM
BVL becomes important when servicing customers. Having all information about a customer at the touchpoint greatly empowers the sales person in serving the customer better.

Today’s CRM systems are mostly after the fact kind of systems. They rely and function more on analytics of past / historical data rather than predictive or proactive modeling. Be it an airline or a retailer, all analysis is typically done after the passenger has flown or the purchase has been made. And typically this is done once a month or at best once a week. By which time, your opportunity to serve the customer better has already gone by.

Reducing BVL through Predictive Modeling
iLoyal is the latest new generation product from IBS and joins a growing list of new-generation business applications to cater to the emerging needs of the global marketplace. iLoyal helps the Loyalty Manager and the front-end agents by giving them a deeper and more current understanding of the customer value.

iLoyal’s Customer Analytics allows a business user to gain greater insight into customer value and behavior through the analysis of data. While it is difficult to ascertain any pattern from raw transaction data, iLoyal synthesizes data into specific variables and with analytical models, presenting a much clearer picture of value and behavior. iLoyal achieves it primarily through two predictive models that are built as part of the product.

Current Value Model: The current value score in iLoyal tells to what extent the customer is valuable and profitable. In order to arrive at this score a variety of data is used which includes customer behavior attributes and aggregates (derived attributes).

Life Time Value Model: This model predicts the long term value of a customer based on a combination of variables which typically include demographics (job, industry, age, place of residence) and recent value contribution of activity pattern (e.g. flying frequently in first class, regular usage of credit cards in retail shops etc.).

Churn Model: This model predicts the probability of a member churning out to a competitor. This is arrived at by analyzing the previous activity trends, the frequency of activities and maps it across a timeline.

These customer value scores and list of potential churns can be generated up-front. With a small interfacing, these customer value scores can be displayed to the agent at the customer touch-point – be it a check-in agent at an airline or an agent at a POS of a retailer. By doing so, the agent now has a complete understanding of the value of the customer – both short term as well as long term – and can view the current transaction in light of that information and provide a more appropriate service to the customer. It also gives the agent the ability to win back the customer who is likely to churn away. All this happens in real time.

Conclusion
With such an approach the benefit is that you now have near real time information about the customer’s value and combining it with the value / nature of the transaction that is happening you can greatly reduce the BVL. Decision making is pushed further down the line – where it actually matters – and that ensures that you have a delighted customer. All that you need is a combination of the right technology and human intelligence.

All forms of modern, urban, human civilizations have come to a grinding halt. Because they see, for instance, that all the airline companies are in dreadfully bad shape and are grounding more and more planes. Which means you cannot fly anymore. All retailers are crawling on their stomachs and starved for margins and hence will be forced to shut down. Which means you can’t shop anymore. All Telecom companies are laying off thousands and some are bound to shut down any day. Which means your expensive, slick, high snob value cell phones and blackberries can be used to scratch your backs.

And, the real estate companies have been crushed to mother earth and grounded for life- instead of seeing their fortunes rise like their skyscrapers. And who wants to forget the big banks? They have all closed counters and went away with all our hard earned money. So, if the doomsday predictors and their ‘severe economic recessionary trend will continue to batter stocks and companies fortunes resulting in downward growth in most economies and therefore leading to unending massive layoffs” theories are indeed true, and, if there are no shops, cell phones, homes, planes and bank savings, why don’t we all abandon our cities and live off fresh fruits in nearby jungles?

Well, the point has been made, even at the risk of overindulging in redundant rhetoric. But, pray, oh pray, can we please spare ourselves from soaking our eyes in words of despair? The world has been worse to many and generations before us have experienced the worst.

If we look up ‘underdog’ in any reasonable dictionary (hope you did not sell yours to make some money during these dark, ugly days of recession), this beautiful word- underdog, tells you a few inspiring things.

The underdog, in sports for instance, is the individual or team which is working so hard to win and everyone would like to see them win.. Everyone loves an underdog. But the underdog has a slim chance. He has no history of being the best or the biggest. There are several odds stacked against him. But he sure is working his way up to win- come heaven or hell.

Now, let us connect the word ‘underdog’ with another inspiring one’ entrepreneur’. Who is an entrepreneur? Here’s a simple definition- An entrepreneur is someone who attempts to organize resources in new and more valuable ways and accepts full responsibility for the outcome.

Now, most entrepreneurs started off as an underdog, what with very little capital, human resources or infrastructure to begin with. But they built their companies, step by step, clinging to the tails of their compelling ideas and believing in them. And entrepreneurship has been happening for centuries( just that they invented a long word to describe it). Thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs, over the last several hundreds of years built the basis of what we see as the economic world today- providing billions of people with thousands of products and services while also providing opportunities to work and earn a living.

However, today, we have a more crowded world. So, more is the need for products and services. And, therefore more the need for innovative ideas. But, then there’s the rest of us too- the worker bees. The ones who have been hired to think, create, plan, contribute, discuss, and debate ideas, thoughts, suggestions and execute them so that the organizations we work for don’t just thrive but prosper.

We are at a stage, where the economy is telling us- this is not enough. We need more (ideas, thoughts, ventures, initiatives to succeed) to help turnaround the numbers. So, young ladies and gentlemen, do we then stop worrying about the economy and the lay offs and every other piece of negative news that is hitting our mailboxes so hard and so often? And, instead, draw as much inspiration from the leaders who went out and started an organization and then hired folks such as you and me to help business grow?
And, remember this- (yes, more preachy stuff), if you have understood, experienced and participated in the pains and sorrows of building a team, a product, an application or participated in any initiative where you took on leadership roles at those levels expected from you, then you are one of those this society needs- a future budding entrepreneur, and the world has one more underdog they would love to rever!