Paal Kibsgaard, head of Schlumberger, has four main tags to transform the oil services giant: Innovation, reliability, efficiency and integration.
The Sclumberger CEO visited the prestigous Oslo Energy Forum at Holmenkollen Park in February 2014.
Kibsgaard is himself a prototype of what he is looking for, when searching the global market of talented students and innovative startup companies. He arrived at Schlumberger as a young engineer in 1997. A “rocket” career brought Mr. Kibsgaard to the very top position in 2011, now working from the Houston HQ with a salary way above reach for the gross of Norwegian proffessional managers.
He is busy promoting the Schlumberger mantra in both recent and coming years.
- Innovation
- Reliability
- Efficiency
- Integratio
Oslo Business Memo is in this story referring to a keynote speech Kibsgaard delivered at the Howard Weil Energy Conference in March 24, 2014, revealed on the Schlumberger home page. Kibsgaard's message is all about the need for transformation! Escalating costs, flat oil production and range-bound commodity prices put pressure on profitalbility and cash flow.
Schlumberger is starting to see an impact of the transformation programs: Technology innovation, integration, reliability and efficiency. Schlumberger has invested more than USD350 millions in the programs that started between three and six years ago.
– The industry-wide challenges can only be addressed by creating a step-change in technical performance throughout the exploration and production value chain, by learning from other industries, and by showing willingness to transform the way we approach our business, says Kibsgaard.
He looks to other industries for inspiration; rewriting the research and engineering operating system, using the latest best practises from other industries such as automotive and aerospace.
– The impact of our transformation programs will increase, says Paal Kibsgaard.
Employing a growing workforce of 123,000 people representing over 140 nationalities in more than 85 countries, Schlumberger has a constant hunger of new, young talents from the universities as well as innovative comapanies.
The Oslo area is absolutely one of the places where Schlumberger is looking for M&A opportunities and new talents. Despite the infamous Norwegian high cost level, there might well be added new employees to the 4 700 schlumbergerians based in Norway.
Paal Kibsgaard describes the M&A activity this way:
– We have established a broad capability in terms of identifying the right targets, timely closing of transactions, and seamlessly integrating the new companies into Schlumberger.
The range of Schlumberger M&A activity spans from complete mega-acquisitions such as Smith International, conversion of minority interests to full ownership such as the pending Saxon Energy Services transaction, partnering through joint ventures such as OneSubsea, compiling numerous smaller targets in new spaces such as Rod Lift in North America Land, acquisition of disruptive technology companies such as NovaDrill, and smaller investments in start-up companies such as Liquid Robotics.