With the world's appetite for oil more ravenous than ever, and fluctuating oil prices often upsetting the world economy, the oil industry is under intense pressure to get the goods out of the ground and into use as soon as possible. The exploration and development phase of this process is long and tedious, often spanning 7 to 10 years. However, once a project is sanctioned, oil companies want to begin producing oil and gas as soon as possible.

Veteran industry player MODEC is on the high-pressured production end of the race to market. As a Tokyo-based provider of offshore floating production and storage facilities, MODEC has watched customer timetables steadily accelerate over the past five years. "All our clients are requesting information from us in shorter time periods. Every day that a field is not pumping, they're losing money," explains Michael Lipowski, General Manager of Contracts and Risk Management at MODEC. "We used to convert an FPSO [Floating Production Storage and Offloading system] in two years; now we're asked to convert one in as little as 18 months. The faster we can move data around the world—from engineering people in locations such as India, Houston, Tokyo, and Singapore, to construction people in Singapore, China, and other places, to operations people in Africa and back to Houston-the faster we can meet our client's timetables," he says.

However, just as customers were demanding faster response, MODEC's communications systems struggled to keep up. The company's e-mail messaging system slowed to a crawl and even failed once, costing MODEC US$275,000 in downtime and data losses. Traveling employees couldn't easily connect to the company network, and IT staffers spent hours each week resolving computer difficulties for frustrated mobile workers. It was also difficult to support new projects around the world because of a shortage of resources familiar with MODEC's older technology.

As oil exploration accelerated around the globe, so did MODEC's anxiety at keeping its rapid growth dependent on unreliable technology. From 2000 to 2006, the company grew from 100 to 850 people. "The technology infrastructure that had worked fine for a 100-employee company had become inefficient in an 800-employee company," says Ed Flavin, Director of Information Technology at MODEC. "We work in a virtual team environment, with engineering people in India and Houston, construction people in Singapore and China, and operations people in Brazil and Africa. All these people need to communicate."

But communication was frustratingly slow and tedious. Engineering reviews took an extra two weeks because of the slow communications issues, as diagrams were sent as e-mail attachments between teams, printed, marked up, discussed in conference rooms, scanned, and mailed back. Similar painfully slow processes played out in other areas of the company. System failures were common, and it was difficult to incorporate new solutions into the aged network.

"Worse than the cost of keeping our systems running was the cost to the business of not being able to easily move forward with new initiatives because they were so difficult to implement," Lipowski says. "We're a dynamic, growing company in a highly competitive and changing marketplace. Instead of enabling business growth and competitiveness, our IT systems were holding us back."

When Flavin proposed to management that the company simply throw the old system out the door and start over, they carefully considered their situation and then said, "Let's do it."

MODEC spent two months researching alternatives and three months making the switch, first building a bridge between the old and new systems and then removing the old system down to its roots. The company decided to start over with Microsoft technology because of the breadth of programs, its ease of use, widespread familiarity with Microsoft products, availability of worldwide support resources, its cost-effectiveness, and the ease of building new solutions.

"At any moment the oil and gas market can change," Flavin says. "The flexibility designed into Microsoft software makes it ideal for a company like ours that needs to be nimble and responsive."

MODEC installed Microsoft back-office programs for running, managing, and helping to secure its server computers, as well as software for e-mail messaging, instant messaging, Web conferencing, collaboration, and document creation. The company also outfitted its executive, engineering, and sales staff with Microsoft-based mobile devices, which enable traveling employees to access the company's e-mail and other critical business systems from anywhere. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Accudata Systems, helped with the switchover, which finished $250,000 under budget and three weeks ahead of schedule.

Today, MODEC engineering teams around the world use Web conferencing to make changes to engineering drawings in real time. Teams in contracts administration, marketing, and engineering use online collaboration sites to share documents, calendars, and discussion boards. The software's ease of use encourages collaboration and experimentation. "People can focus on their own tasks and let the software coordinate team tasks, because the system works for them instead of against them," Flavin says.

Says Dawn Ritacco, a Human Resources Representative at MODEC, "I'm more willing to experiment with Microsoft programs and try new features because they're more intuitive than other programs I've used. For example, when I forget a spreadsheet formula, rather than call the help desk I can use the Help menu or jump to the Microsoft Web site to find tutorials."

Flavin says that more advanced users figure out new features on their own and pull the rest of the users along with them. "As people become proficient with a particular feature, such as the online calendar, they put pressure on their peers to use it," he says. "Users are educating users. It makes the whole organization better and faster, and it takes the pressure off the IT staff, because users solve their own problems."

MODEC is now able to respond to ever-tougher customer schedules and adapt quickly as quixotic oil markets change direction. Employees are empowered, wherever they are and whatever they do. Plus, MODEC is saving millions of dollars in IT, hiring, and relocation expenses.

With every aspect of its business enhanced with easy-to-use communications and collaboration technologies, MODEC has been able to accelerate decisions and response. "Eliminating weeks from the design cycle puts money in our customers' pockets," Lipowski says. "The sooner engineering is done, the sooner construction can start, and the sooner production can begin. We're realizing time savings that impact our bottom line and our customers' bottom lines."

Also, MODEC's new business capabilities put it on equal footing with more customers. "Many of the tools that we're using, they're using, too, because Microsoft programs are very popular across the industry," he says. "Clients expect us to be able to communicate and share documents with them, and Microsoft technologies enable us to match up with them."

Its new technology underpinnings have also freed MODEC to grow, try new things, and roll out new solutions that will keep the business responsive and competitive. "In this new environment, it's easy to stack tools on top of one another, to add new capabilities, and to bring people up to speed quickly," Lipowski says. "We didn't have this in the past; it was, 'We can't do this, we can't do that,' or we would try something and it broke. We haven't hit a business request yet that we can't implement, and quickly. As a manager, the best thing I can say is, it works."

Its new business capabilities are also enabling MODEC to save money. The new technology requires fewer data center resources, such as hardware and management time, which saves MODEC up to $400,000 annually. Relocation costs are also less, a significant benefit for a project-based company like MODEC. "Today, I don't have to hire talent in Houston and move them to Brazil for six months or vice versa," Lipowski says. "They can stay in Houston or Brazil and use the technology to work on their current project. We will reduce employee relocation costs and improve our workers' quality of life at the same time."

Additional savings come from lower project startup costs, because it's so much easier to set up new desktop systems anywhere in the world and train new hires to use the tools. Because more than half of MODEC's workers are contract employees, pre-existing familiarity with Microsoft products is a big timesaver. "The cost of bringing on new employees has easily dropped 30 percent," Lipowski says. "That's a significant amount for us. The sooner I can get an employee in place and productive, the better. To add another 50 people in Singapore is not an insurmountable task like it used to be."

Online collaboration sites are helping MODEC solve another problem that is plaguing the oil industry: an aging workforce. Collaboration portals are a great way to post and share knowledge so it's available anytime, to anyone, from any location. "Many older workers don't want to use some of the newer tools such as instant messaging, and younger workers don't have the patience to sit in meetings," Flavin says. "But the great thing about our new toolset is that we don't have to define how workers work; we're able to give them a wide variety of tools and let them figure out what's best for them."

Concludes Lipowski, "Microsoft has allowed us to build a quality toolkit. When a MODEC employee walks in the door and I hand them this toolkit, they have the ability to be successful in whatever they do and however they want to do it. Employees are more excited to learn what the solution can do, and they're enjoying their work more."

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