Whether they are in the power or process industry, owners, operators, and their E&C partners face extraordinary demands in the next 20 years. The International Energy Agency (IEA) 2012 World Market Report estimates that a cumulative investment of US$37 trillion is need in the world’s energy supply by 2035.1 Of that investment, US$19 trillion will need to go to oil and gas facilities and infrastructure and US$17 trillion to meet generation, transmission, and distribution needs with the remaining targeted at other energy solutions.

Through 2020, the Global Construction Perspectives & Oxford Economics report estimates that over US$97.7 trillion will be spent on construction projects globally. In 2010, the growth within the engineering and construction market was US$7.2 trillion and by 2020, that growth will move up 67% to US$12 trillion.

Is your company prepared to make the most of the emerging opportunities?

“Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management 8.1 drastically changed the way we run our business. We’ve reduced the number of redundant assets, streamlined project implementation and execution, and improved collaboration with our customers and contractors. Overall, the Oracle deployment helped to increase our profitability.” – Roman Aleksandrovich Naumenko, Head of Information Technology, LLC Uralelektrostroy

There are a growing number of apps available for contractors. As they become more important for the industry, it is worth spending time to understand the apps that are available, including how they are delivered and used and how they work alongside and within enterprise software systems.

Increasing competition and tighter budgets are driving heightened financial scrutiny for the funding, planning and execution of projects. To maximise project ROI, organisations must be able to capture costs and drive efficiencies throughout the project lifecycle.

It is a commonly held view among the EPPM community that enterprise leadership teams lack the concise, accurate and meaningful information to help them truly evaluate and analyse their portfolio against strategic imperatives. This is a conundrum when set against the accepted wisdom that visibility is a key ingredient for C-level success. If visibility is this important, why is the quality of the information reaching executives so poor? More importantly, what can be done to augment its flow? Until now the inference has been that it is the responsibility of the executive to improve their processes: that it is they who require the coaching to recognise the benefits inherent in the portfolio. However, The EPPM Board identified another reason senior leaders do not gain the insight they should: the cultural behaviours across an organisation that shape the way issues/problems are reported.

Communication and collaboration between owners and contractors has been a frustrating, expensive, and ongoing issue in the engineering and construction industry. All the players agree that clear communication is critical to the successful completion of construction projects. Yet, poor communication happens all the time as projects progress to completion. Misunderstandings are commonplace—not only when owner and contractor organizations communicate with each other, but even within those organizations between project team members. 

Since the earliest days of business computing, there have been countless changes to the technology solutions available to those in construction. However, three major waves have significantly changed how contractors do business.

We are in the midst of a transition to cloud based computing as the primary model for data center workloads. According to “Independent Shipment Analysis, Cisco Systems”, by 2014, over 50% of all workloads will be processed in the cloud; traditional computing will be in the minority. It is projected to reduce overall tech spending by $30B-$39B in 2013, replacing 14% of global on-premise spending in 2020. This transition translates into a cloud computing market growth rate of 37% from 2008 to 2013, from $13B to $55B. According to another source, the total cloud market was $20B in 2011 and is expected to reach $26.4B in 2012, equating to 32% growth year over year. Gartner pegged the expected growth rate between 2011 and 2012 at 37% (from $14.5B to $22.1B).

“We assessed a number of document viewing applications, some of which could be integrated with our document management system. AutoVue 3-D Professional Advanced’s robust functionality and positive references tipped our evaluation strongly in Oracle’s favor. We had no doubt that it was the right choice,” said Ulisse Beretta, business applications manager, Saipem S.p.A