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Talent. Oil & Gas Making or Breaking Future Business

By Matthew Bertram·
From the ModalPoint Archive. This post dates from 2015, when ModalPoint operated as an oil & gas commercialization advisory founded by Mark LaCour — who remains a ModalPoint strategic advisor today. ModalPoint has since grown into decision intelligence for energy: go-to-market intelligence for selling into oil & gas, plus AI decision governance — see who we are now. The analysis below reflects the industry context of 2015.
  Come see how the Oil and Gas industry will either make or break their future business based upon their choices in managing their talent pool.   Hey, folks. Let’s learn something new about the oil and gas industry. [Music] Today, we’re going to talk about something that’s going to be a major driver in the oil and gas industry, it’s just not going to happen right now. So, we’re in the first quarter of 2015 and we’re still under low crude prices. And what’s happening is companies are having to figure out especially the upstream and the service companies how to figure out how to deal with these declining budgets and declining revenue, right? They have a bunch of options on their plate to increase operational efficiency and one of those options on the plate is actually to decrease the size of their workforce – layoffs. Now, unfortunately this point in history there’s a massive shortage of talent in the oil and gas industry especially STEMS talent. You’ve heard us talk about that before; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. So, companies right now are trying to figure out what’s the best way to manage this, right? They may have to reduce the size of their workforce, but they know down the road they’re going to need the same people back and they’re not going to be able to hire them. And we’re watching companies right now making some really smart decisions. FMC Technologies, Chevron are making really good decisions about their talent right now. And we’re seeing other companies make not such good decisions and what’s going to happen is right now it’s not going to impact the company, but when the price of crude goes back up and we’re thinking it’s going back up 2016, the decisions these companies are making now are either make or break them in the future. So, if you’re one of these companies and you’re in the industry, you need to really think about your talent and what the future is going to bring you before you make a decision to get rid of people because you probably won’t be able to pick them back up and hire them again. And so, that whole thing is a major driver and we’re watching it unfold right now. You’re seeing things play in that like knowledge transfer, reaching out to other facets of different parts and makes you see if you can find talent. Downstream right now has a major shortage that’s going to continue to grow. In fact, 2017 there’s going to be a 188 million man hours of craft labor needed just in the Gulf Coast region. There’s only 90 million man hours of capacity, what are they going to do? That’s going to drive some major business decisions. And like I said the companies that are making the smart decisions now are going to benefit from that in the future. So, folks, I hope this helped. If you like what we’re doing, could you help us spread the love? Just click the social share buttons underneath and help us reach other people that would appreciate our message. And if you haven’t done so yet, go to our blog, sign up for our newsletter. It’s a great monthly little read where we highlight all the oil and gas events that are going on so you know which ones are worth your attention and which ones are not. So, folks, I hope this helped. We will see you next time. [Music]  
Where this stands in 2026

Selling into oil & gas has changed since this was written. ROIC discipline, procurement gates, and AI-assisted buyer research reward companies that engineer for how the industry actually decides — which is the work ModalPoint does now.

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ModalPoint Editorial

ModalPoint Editorial is the byline for content published by the ModalPoint team — a Houston-based decision-intelligence advisory and division of EWR Digital. ModalPoint helps technology, equipment, and software companies sell into oil and gas, pairing go-to-market intelligence grounded in how the energy industry decides with AI decision governance (DIG) for a defensible record.

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