In the IT world, there is an observation, sometimes called “Conway’s law”, that says that a company’s systems tend to reflect its org chart.
When it comes to India’s IT company, the law seems particularly apt. The operational IT closely reflects organisational silos, successive attempts at digitisation and the back-and-forth between top-down initiatives and field adjustments.
The Cost of Incomplete Digitisation
In early, top-down attempts at digitising operations, companies often try to make the ERP the main engine, with the mission of replacing multiple legacy software.
As the financial and procurement backbone, the ERP is powerful and connected to crucial functions – but it is also very costly and requires heavy customisation, even after bolting on maintenance or plant management modules.
To work around this, operations teams look for point solutions to fill the gaps. They are everything the ERP isn’t: they are rapidly deployed and effective at solving a narrow problem, but they rarely scale and interface with other solutions. In recent years, India’s oil and gas companies have tried to leverage new artificial intelligence applications, leading to a flurry of proof-of-concepts that have added a new layer of complexity.
The result of these consecutive waves: scattered and siloed data and teams spending an ever-increasing amount of time managing systems. According to a recent survey by Hexagon, half of oil and gas executives say their company uses more applications than it did a year ago and 71 per cent say their organisation suffers a strong or severe impact from lack of connectivity between them.
Last but not least, there are pen-and-paper processes that stubbornly resist digitisation. A 2022 Forrester survey found eight in ten Indian organisations still rely on paper documents, often for procurement and support functions.
The Triple Challenge: Lifecycle Visibility, Functionality, Connectivity
So where do we go from there? In this article, we present an approach that offers the “best of both worlds”: rapid deployment, strong match for industrial operations and ability to evolve and scale.
The two-pillar approach we present aims to address three core needs of oil and gas companies:
Unifying asset management across the lifecycle. Today, nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of oil and gas executives surveyed by Hexagon say they struggle with missing or inaccurate asset information. As a result, 71 per cent report rising maintenance costs and 61 per cent say asset unreliability is a major issue. These challenges make a strong case against the status quo and organisations can greatly benefit from the approach we recommend in this area.Combining large functional coverage and ease of use. Digitisation initiatives often fail in the field – when workers don’t understand or see value in adopting new tools or ways of working. For example, the persistent use of paper or spreadsheets to access information, reported by 71 per cent of oil and gas executives, is a telltale sign and a significant obstacle to performance improvements or AI success.Providing a single pane of glass across a complex landscape. Oil and gas companies rely on a web of stand-alone systems for process control (SCADA, DCS, PLC), along with the ERP and multiple third-party software. Silos, closed ecosystems and lack of integration lead to significant waste of time, greater cognitive load for workers and poorer decisions overall. EAM and ERP: Strong Integration and Strong FoundationOur experience is that best-performing companies are those that tackle these three challenges deliberately and opt for a strong foundation rather than a sprawling number of tools.
In particular, leading companies in India are moving away from piecemeal tools and towards a two-pillar approach: combining their ERP platform with a best-in-class Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system such asHxGN EAM.
This strategy allows the ERP to retain its role as the financial and procurement backbone, while handing operational control of assets to a system designed for it. The result is more flexible, scalable and integrated.
Four Reasons Why This Model Works
First, asset management remains integrated with ERP, without being buried by it. With solutions like HxGN EAM, key data can flow across systems, but the day-to-day work of maintenance, inspection and inventory is managed in an environment built for it.
Second, this combination can work wonders for every company that suffers from data connectivity headaches. HxGN EAM offers strong connectivity out of the box: its Databridge Pro is tailor-made to link to multiple enterprise systems, as well as industrial systems like SCADA and PLCs. APIs and prebuilt connectors support common platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Salesforce.
Third, asset management is best described as a “system of systems” and this setup is able to handle all its various dimensions. HxGN EAM supports parts inventory, work management, condition monitoring and operational risk management. Analyst firm Verdantix recently gave the platform the highest scores for operational risk and information management, with built-in safety features such as lock-out tag-out and permit-to-work. Hexagon works with the vast majority of oil and gas companies around the world, which means that solutions are tried-and-tested for the challenges the sector faces
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly: it works quickly. Unlike larger transformations, where benefits often take years to materialise, EAM deployments can show value within months. We see many firms start with critical assets or one high-value site, then expand coverage rapidly. This avoids loss and momentum and other “POC purgatory” that has derailed so many earlier digitisation efforts.
AI, APM…A Springboard for Rapid and Reliable Innovation
Once in place, this foundation helps companies deploy innovation at scale rapidly, because connectivity and cybersecurity are already built-in.
For example, they can rapidly leverage AI algorithms that are tried and tested in industrial environments for predictive maintenance. When it comes to generative AI, HxGN Alix let users query asset information in natural language, cutting time spent searching for documents.
For oil and gas, an approach that is also rapidly gaining attention is Asset Performance Management (APM), which leverages real-time asset data to improve uptime, optimise maintenance costs and extend asset life and enhance safety. But to deliver on that potential, APM systems require a foundation of accurate, complete and timely asset data, including real-time condition data from sensors or control systems, maintenance history, asset hierarchies, failure modes or procurement data.
This data lives in two systems: the ERP and the EAM – and HxGN EAM bring advanced APM capabilities along with an Asset Twin Library of failure modes, preventative maintenance activities and prescriptive actions to see benefits on day 1.
Importantly, HxGN EAM remains open. Teams can use their own Python scripts and create custom integrations as needed. This flexibility allows firms to adapt the system to their operations, rather than reshaping operations around the tool. It’s the condition for digitisation to work and take hold.
This approach is well suited to India’s oil and gas sector, at a time when pressure to modernise is high and fragmented tools have added complexity. A more effective approach is emerging with a clear digital foundation around two central systems, ERP and EAM – and the results can be transformative.
