VIST: Virtual Integrated Subsurface Teams
Strados International Limited has designed an innovative business model called VIST® for Virtual Integrated Subsurface Teams for outsourcing the knowledge and business processes for managing the subsurface hydrocarbon resources to the upstream sector of the energy industry.
VIST® is based on a high-skilled distributed workforce, leading software applications, cloud-based secure ecosystems, 4IR technologies, and OpEx-only budgets. It provides all the roles needed to build and manage tailored interdisciplinary subsurface teams for specific E&P company’s asset management organisations. VIST® focuses on providing more technical professional services of the highest quality with less. It is a workforce of seasoned geoscientists and reservoir engineers distributed across various geographical locations worldwide. These personnel virtually share knowledge to provide interdisciplinary technical services in integrated reservoir studies for exploration and development projects of the energy industry.
We build solid organisational capabilities for our customers through connections to a large international pool of candidates. We identify competent former project-ready and client-ready business managers. Hire professionals who possess the right project delivery skills and team behaviours and show the knowledge and experience relevant to the business change necessary to deliver exceptional customer service.
In this business model, outsourcing allows companies to add or reduce personnel far more straightforward and manageable than a company can in-house, hence avoiding expensive downsizing processes. Our virtual teams provide highly customised outsourcing services while providing fulfilling, rewarding careers and professional satisfaction for our employees.
Through VIST® teams, the energy industry can overcome the ongoing skill gap, attract retirees, bring them back, and recruit more women. Furthermore, this model has the ability and flexibility to attract and retain top talent by diversifying candidate pools, hiring workers outside a specific market, and finding the right employees in international markets; without going through complicated and expensive expatriate recruitment processes. In addition, workers benefit from not commuting to work and moving away from costly urban areas without sacrificing access to competitive jobs.
This operating model realises further savings by minimising IT infrastructure provisioning costs. Traditionally, the asset management organisations in the oil and gas industry have been highly reliant on CAPEX models for provisioning the computing infrastructure and specialised software for executing the interdisciplinary subsurface processes, procedures, and functions. However, on-demand access to cloud-based, fully managed IT infrastructure is a more cost-effective model. It avoids the cost of ownership, the complexity of management, and the need for long-term contracts or up-front investments. Alongside, a cloud, consumption-based model gives VIST® teams the agility and flexibility to scale up, down, or turn off software, storage, and computing power at any time.
Distributed interdisciplinary experts collaborate through a secure, cloud-based ecosystem that makes applications and workflows accessible to authorised users. These ecosystems are commonplace workplaces for data, models and interpretations while respecting proprietary information boundaries. It reduces costs, breaks down data silos, and brings data together in one location by migrating, classifying, and managing all subsurface data from different sources and legacy systems in a single repository platform hosted in a cloud-based integrated E&P environment.
This digital workplace operates under a distributed work strategy that protects any device anywhere. It implements a zero-trust security model for safeguarding customer’s data from threads, network bridges, and unauthorised access by mitigating, detecting, and responding to risks across applications and cloud environments from any user, device, and location. Thus, protecting the end-users, data, and applications in the cloud against threats anywhere our employees access the Internet.
This innovative business model benefits clients by shifting upfront investments, well-defined processes with rigid approvals to ongoing costs required for day-to-day functioning, and less rigorous approaches to its governance. It enables E&P companies to achieve financial success for sustainable growth by swiftly adjusting to market price volatility and changing business conditions.
Additionally, a VIST® team operates according to contracting legal considerations set out in an exclusive outsourcing agreement guaranteeing appropriate intellectual property rights management.
Contact us and find out how VIST® can transform your subsurface asset management teams and produce substantial cost reductions and risk mitigation in your petroleum and gas projects.
