L
owoil prices, shrinkingmargins (or nomargin at all), loss of jobs
and perhaps the decline of the industry as awhole – the topic has
been hanging around oil and gas professionals like a dark cloud for
two years now. One of themost persistent discussions has beenwhether
this is just ‘the cycle’ or whether there is something structurally different
about this downturn. This has been particularly poignant for high-cost
offshore regions such as theNorth Sea, which includes AGR TRACS’
training business.
Most people are concluding the downturn is a little different this
time around. Longer, deeper, andwith less inevitability that the high-cost
arenaswill simply return to their previousways of life.
Hope
Which begs the question –what is the future here for the thousands of
professionals living andworking in higher-cost regions? In the service
sector, formost businesses the instinctive desire is to hang in, hope for
the local upturn and look further afield for work in themeantime. The
preferencewill be for companies to remain at their home locations,
where they already have business and personal infrastructure, but is this
reallyworkable in the long term? The hope is yes, but not in the sense
that workability is thought of today, and training offers an example.
The notion of working globally fromareas such as Aberdeen is
certainly less fanciful than it would have been one or two decades ago.
Global connectivity allows this in awaywhich is unlikely to be reversed –
even the restrictions of an airport with a runway that is still not quite long
enough can be overcomemore easily than in the past when face-to-face
meetingwas the onlyway to progress business.
What
is
fanciful is the notion that areas such as Aberdeen can simply
export ‘Aberdeen’ to an eagerlywaitingworld that just wishes to be,
well, more like Aberdeen. The idea of ‘internationalising’ is a simple and
obvious one – the tougher question is how to do it well when there are
plenty of emerging providers in other regions.
The questions to ask are:
Why should any emerging region wish to call on AGR TRACS’
Training services?
Why pay the premiumassociated with importing expatriate skills?
Why not use local talent, especially if that talent has already been
trained up on university Masters programmes run by expatriates?
Essentially, even if the company believes it has done a good job in
the past in its own regions, why should it expect that theworld iswaiting
eagerly to be exposed to its personal technical histories and biases? The
expectation almost seems a little arrogant.
Mindful export
The keywould seemto be to avoid simply exportingNorth Sea expertise
but instead package the skills in amore tailoredway or offer bespoke
products.
In the world of training this is readily apparent. The TRACS
Training brand has always worked globally, and the brand distinction
is the delivery of tailored courses, rather than off-the-shelf products.
These takemore time and effort to build andmaintain than standard
commodity products but they are internationally portable. This is
not franchising – the company’s skill pool of tutors is made up of
staff or close associates who aremostly UK-based and the IP for the
courses are generally shared between tutors and the company. It is
instead the export of tailored products and the concept of putting
manpower-intensive bespoke tailoring first, in preference to themore
traditional (and generally more profitable) option of commoditising
and generating volume products.
TAILORING
MARK BENTLEY, AGR TRACS TRAINING,
UK, GIVES AN INSIGHT INTO WHAT TO DO
WHEN BUSINESS DRIES UP AT HOME.
TRAINING
|
61
