Work from home is the new normal. Our lives are more digital now than they ever were. We use a variety of digital tools to do our work, and we have collectively discovered that we can do it all from the comfort of our own home.
Managers can lead teams. Colleagues can work together. Salespeople can sell products and services. Only very few activities need to be done in person and on premise. Digital tools have come to the rescue.
The questions that is going around the industry is: Will the increased reliance on digital technologies in the workplace generate in-creased adoption of the digital transformation?
Let me be clear on the question. The digital technologies we have all come to rely on are, for example, video calls on platforms such as Zoom; project management tools such as Microsoft Teams; task management tools such as Jira; instant messaging tools such as Slack; cloud computing and storage on Amazon, Google, and Azure clouds; and so on. These are all tools that allow people to work well with other people.
The digital transformation, however, is based on technologies that would have people work with machines and equipment rather than other people. Here, we are not talking about collaboration but rather digital twins, advanced process control, predictive maintenance, and many other automation technologies that do things that were not possible before. Many of these rely on techniques collectively called artificial intelligence (AI).
Despite every one of us using AI every day (think of Netflix telling you what to watch), there is still some resistance in adopting similar techniques in recommending actions for maintenance of wells. Will this resistance come down faster now that we all feel that digital tools are mature?
I do not have an answer for you but want to raise the question and gather your feedback.
Many vendors give an enthusiastic “yes!” as the answer, but this may be more of a wish than a prophesy.
Apart from the new visibility of digital tools, one might cite other factors such as cost pressure because of the oil price, pressure to act because of the decarbonization of finance, or the energy transition to renewables because of climate change.
What do you think? Let me know your opinions and any examples. Thank you in advance! Write to me at p.bangert@samsung.com.
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