OIL COMPANIES VIE TO PLUG SKILLS GAP THAT THREATENS SUPPLY
October 22, 2008
LONDON (Dow Jones Newswires)

Falling raw material and equipment costs in a slowing world economy offer an opportunity for oil and gas companies to solve the problems of rising costs and delays at major projects, but the industry again finds itself confronting a longstanding enemy - a shortage of people with the skills and experience to lead these developments.

If efforts to plug the skills gap don't succeed, senior industry executives say oil companies' ability to tap new and challenging hydrocarbon resources fast enough to meet demand may have already have reached its limit.

"The really big strategic issue for all oil and gas companies is matching the earth's resource endowment with the capability - technology, skills and know-how - required to bring those resources to market," said BP PLC's head of exploration and production Andy Inglis in a speech at Rice University in Texas last week. Because of the skills shortage, this capability already may have peaked, he said.

Rapid inflation in the cost of doing business, from renting drilling rigs to the cost of steel pipes, has been a growing impediment to companies racing to bring new oil and gas resources to market. It has become increasingly common for major projects to blow out their budgets and come online months or years late.

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OIL & GAS INDUSTRY GROWTH: PAINS & OPPORTUNITIES
Opportunity is knocking, but many can’t answer the door. A wide variety of market conditions have converged on the Oil & Gas industry creating an environment of record revenues, profit margins and backlogs. The imbalance between demand and supply is compounded by the emergence of national oil companies (NOCs) competing with the World’s major oil companies and mid-tier companies for what is a limited resource of labor and technology. This vacuum between demand and supply offers great opportunities for companies able to act. But, as with most opportunities, time is of the essence.

Consider the comments made by industry expert Rob Black on the situation, Virtually every product and service line in every geographic market is sold out, as the growing number of ‘job turndowns’ amply demonstrates. Oil service and drilling companies keep track of these job turndowns, which are simply work opportunities that they cannot accept due to a lack of equipment and/or personnel.”

Across the board the oil services industry margins continue to expand in what has become a sellers market for oilfield equipment and services. Latent within this market are opportunities for growth through market expansion supported by this unique time of boosted margins. In most cases, medium-sized companies struggle to capitalize on these opportunities limited by their current resources and expertise.

This is where Jhump & Associates works with your company to overcome the challenges to expansion drawing from our depth of experience in these endeavors and our broad network of synergistic providers and companies looking for solutions.

JHUMP & ASSOCIATES ANSWERS STAFFING DEMANDS WITH NEW DEPARTMENT
February, 2008
(HOUSTON, Texas)

To maximize the benefits of a growing demand for permanent and contract staffing services, Jhump & Associates announces the development of a department specifically dedicated to meeting this client demand.

Jhump welcomes Cindy Chavis who will lead the department as Staffing Services Coordinator in conjunction with Tausha Jebbia who was recently promoted to Staffing Services Administrator. Cindy brings with her an in-depth knowledge of the Drilling Industry and the oilfield in general. She has extensive experience in various Human Resources roles with an emphasis on staffing support. Her ability to recognize the caliber of talent required to perform above expectations will be invaluable to Jhump clients in the coming years.   

Jhump & Associates looks forward to seeing the benefits of this addition on its expanding network, as well as constantly developing additional ways to deliver the best for its clients.

To get solutions for your staffing needs, contact Jhump at 1-866-54-Jhump or info@jhump.com

THE PROFIT POWER OF CUSTOMER INTIMACY
by Gerard A. Abraham

Regardless of industry segment, progressive CEOs and Board of Directors are looking for the "silver bullet" to consistently deliver top-line revenue and earnings growth, as means to increase share price and shareholders' value.

Numerous articles are being published promoting the importance of customer satisfaction, and ways to improve it, or touting the needs and means to flawless execution, or the benefits of process reengineering, or of outsourcing to lower-cost regions such as China, India, Latin America or Eastern Europe.

These can, indeed, be good strategies towards better profitability. However, a much-less-publicized yet fundamental lever of higher and sustainable shareholders' returns is "customer intimacy." Customer intimacy impacts shareholders' returns for both sides: the supplier side as well as the customer side.

What is "customer intimacy"?

Customer intimacy can be defined as the formal or informal set of relationships established between supplier and customer, with a diverse array of partners, from corporate leadership to functional leadership (engineering, marketing, operations, maintenance, or service) and end-users of products or services. These dynamic relationships provide multiple points and frequency of contacts between the company and its customer, as well as multiple points of view about the relationship and its benefits to both parties.

What are the benefits of "customer intimacy"?

First, from the supplier side, customer intimacy impacts revenue growth and earnings per share, by creating long-term sustainable competitive advantage through the early identification of unsatisfied needs.

Contrary to the all-too-common syndrome of "if we can make it, they will buy it," that is prevalent in technology-driven companies; customer intimacy allows the adoption of a "customer-need-pull" strategy, as opposed to a "technology-push" strategy.

By establishing long-term relationships with key customers, representative of their targeted market segments, companies set a framework within which they can have repeated opportunities to tap into their knowledge base. Voice-of-the-customer (VOC) interviews, focus groups, and users' group meetings are well-practiced means used by marketing teams to access that knowledge base. But, much more simply, sales and service engineers can provide feedback as they are in a position to interact much more frequently with the end-users.

Establishing very close and frequent relationships with key customers allows companies to be aware of the evolution of their processes and unsatisfied needs in advance of the competition. The corollary is that the investments for research and development of new products can then be focused towards differentiated product features and away from "me-too" products, thus reducing the risk of commoditization.

Commodity products and services are essentially differentiated by their price. As a result, competitive positions must be based on lowest cost of manufacture. In the case of business-to-business dealings, commoditization is essentially driven by purchasing organizations. In order to obtain price concessions from vendors, purchasing officers tend to negotiate with vendors under the assumption that offerings from competitors are providing the same value, and that price is the deciding parameter. It is rarely the case, but, in front of weak or poorly trained sales people, this ploy allows them to obtain discounts from list prices.

In any industry, however, commoditization leads to profit erosion and destruction, rather than increase of profit that is necessary for shareholders' value. Commoditization can transform the market for a unique, branded product into a market based on undifferentiated price competition. Commoditization can be an unintentional outcome that no party is actively seeking to achieve.

Fighting this trend to protect some pricing power requires market and application knowledge on one front. On another front, training and development of the workforce are required. Differentiated products and services that bring an innovative solution to recognized but unsatisfied customers' requirements are obviously easier to price and sell, on the basis of real value, thus avoiding the setting of list prices as "costs plus."

Second, from the customer side, considerable advantage can be generated when dealing with a vendor who is well aware of the details of the business and operations, its main drivers and constraints, as well as its objectives. If this vendor is willing to listen to issues with existing products and services, or to new requirements which may fall outside of their current offering, and is willing to invest in finding solutions, each of these situations corresponds to opportunities for reduced costs or increased capacity, and obviously leads to improved earnings. Key progressive customers are very willing to partner with strategic suppliers to develop unique solutions to their most tangible, high-impact problems.

The next question is how to establish or improve "customer intimacy"?
Every business has some level of customer intimacy, loosely exercised by its various customer interactions: Internet, emails, phone calls, sales and service calls, etc. Every customer interaction is an opportunity to improve customer intimacy. It requires the right attitude, and the motivation to ask the right questions.

Attitudes can be developed through communications, training and development. Motivation can be enhanced by the quality of the talent hired by the company, and by the compensation and rewarding systems. Employees, who clearly understand how their behavior in front of customers can cause increased customer intimacy and how customer intimacy relates to profitability and growth, are more likely to pay attention to their attitudes and to strive to bring value to the customers.

In summary, beyond customer satisfaction, which is essentially transactional, another layer is developed in terms of relationship between supplier and customer. Customer intimacy brings with it a virtuous circle of additional opportunities for companies to avoid the pitfalls of commoditization and "bubble-hype," secure sustainable competitive advantages, and protect pricing power and profit margins, which then in turn enables additional investments towards growth (marketing, new product developments, sales channels, etc.). All of which promotes increases for shareholders' returns.

Gerard A. Abraham is President of Process Instruments Division, a $400 million global manufacturing powerhouse, of Thermo Electron. Gerard is best known for his C-level leadership ability in global, technology-based businesses that deliver "best-in-class" returns for his company's shareholders. He is a keynote speaker at leadership conferences on how to develop intimate market knowledge, leverage top quality talent, and develop a culture of risk tolerance to avoid commoditization in manufacturing. To contact Gerard to speak at your next leadership conference or to send him your comments, email him at gerard.abraham@thermo.com.

SEVEN COMMON SALES CHALLENGES THAT PREVENT EXECUTIVE LEVEL ACCESS
by Jeff Thull

With the complexity of today's business solutions and their far-reaching affects, more often than not senior level executives are actively involved in the process of assessing the issues and their options. Yet many companies are finding their best sales and marketing strategies are highly diluted by the time they reach their customers, and their sales professionals are not connecting to the power in the executive suite.

Gaining access and connecting to executive decision makers is one challenge that most sales professionals continue to seek a better solution to. There are seven common challenges that sales professionals need to resolve in order to effectively engage the executive suite. Consider the following situations, how often they occur within your team and how you currently are approaching each.

When was the last time you couldn't connect to the executive's critical business issues and were delegated down to a support level? Brilliant ideas and valuable products and services fall to indifference if you can't immediately establish credibility and connect to the executive's most pressing issues. Your credibility comes via the relevancy you establish in your introduction by connecting your solutions or capabilities to the business drivers of the executive. By referencing challenges the industry is facing or objectives this company has stated in their public records, the executive will recognize you've thought this through and you couldn't have this conversation with anyone else.

You realized that your strongest contact in your customer's organization no longer held the power to make the buying decision. In today's highly competitive and volatile marketplace, globalization, consolidation, and centralization are some of the causes of decisions moving to higher levels of power and influence. This movement is forcing even the most experienced sales professionals to expand their expertise and compete at levels not required before. Expecting that a single contact in your customer's organization can and will carry your message effectively is hanging on to thin threads of hope. It is critical that we translate the value we can create at the technical, operational or clinical level to the impact it has on the performance drivers on the executive's dashboard and have those conversations with each executive. By recognizing the dials they are watching and being able to discuss their current measurements and how your solution will impact those measurements is a conversation most executives will be open to discuss.

Your competition was in the executive suite and you weren't. Can the competition get to the executive suite and take your account while you believe your relationship is strong at the operations level? Absolutely! Let's face it; your competition would have the advantage. People typically spend more time preparing for a prospect visit than they do for a customer visit. Don't let over-familiarity lull you into understanding less about your customer than your competitor would prepare for. Gain advantage and pull ahead of competitive threats by establishing a broad base of relationships that will preempt and neutralize competitive moves.

You bought into, "I make the final decision," when in fact, political moves and ego games got you hung up with someone who can barely influence the decision. Don't let diluted messages sabotage your best opportunities. Understand how your solution affects each level of responsibility within your customer's organization. It is only natural that you will interact at all levels to understand the full potential your solution will have, and after the sale to assure that the full value of your solution is being achieved. Building these relationships as you gather information will ensure you are firmly grounded with those who are both impacted and influenced by the decision.

You finally reached the person who held the checkbook, but you couldn't build the financial case they needed to make the buying decision. The financial executive plays an increasingly central role in setting the strategy of the organization and how to fund the implementation of the strategy. Do not place the burden on your customers of translating your technical advantages into the financial impact of your solution. Involve them in your calculations; have them collaborate and adjust your assumptions. In the end, the customer must "own" the justification. Be their advisor, not their sales rep. Position your solution as a strategic asset.

Third party consultants forced you to compete on price when you knew that the value you would create for the customer was not making it to the executive level in your customer's organization. Recognize that you and the consultant have the same customer. Build the case for mutual gains with the consultant by asking the questions they have not thought of asking and don't have the answers to. They will recognize the value you add to their position and invite you into the executive suite. Help third party consultants manage a quality buying process that builds successful outcomes for them, for you and for your customers.

Your convincing proposal won the first round of approvals, but you later found that the executive buy-in never happened. The executive had criteria on the table that you never tapped into, or even knew existed. Engage the executives early in the decision process to establish the criteria that creates senior-level ownership. Build winning proposals that connect the business drivers at all levels of influence and decision. Ask the in-depth questions your customer has not thought of asking. Ask questions that expose the risks inherent in a successful implementation of your solution.

Executives are concerned about working with suppliers that truly understand their business, their customers' demands, and their competitive landscape, as well as the challenges associated with the implementation. If you cannot speak to these issues, your time in the executive suite will be brief at best.

To help you get started in gaining access and communicating with credibility, here are three suggestions:

Understand the executive mindset and be empowered to connect to top executives. Gain insight into how they think, what they expect, what makes them move forward, and how they drive management support. They are looking for ideas and resources to execute their strategy, and how to reduce risk and increase the probability of success.

Create compelling relevancy that gains you access to the executive suite. Build a value assumption that will connect your capabilities to the executive agenda and ensure you have a strong executive-level sponsorship to prove or disprove the hypothesis.

Know how to establish exceptional credibility with corporate executives. Expected credibility is what you know about your solution. Exceptional credibility is what you know about your customer's business. Look at your words and your documents. Are they about you and your solution or are they about your customer and their business?

When you understand the mindset of the executive, connect to their agenda and establish exceptional credibility, you will find yourself having meaningful conversations that often result in long-term and mutually beneficial relationships.

JHUMP & ASSOCIATES OPENS CORPORATE OFFICE IN HOUSTON
December 1, 2006
(HOUSTON, Texas)

Jhump & Associates, LLC is pleased to announce the opening of their corporate headquarters in Houston.

Jhump, a business development and services group, leverages the experience of its team and global contacts to assist companies with increasing their sales or improving bottom line profits. Many companies often find that they are extremely competent and qualified in the work, product and services they provide but require assistance with expanding their business. This is where Jhump & Associates' experience and expertise becomes necessary.

While Jhump's legacy is predominately in the Oilfield, their clients and offerings are not solely focused in this arena. They focus on synergy's that can be developed between businesses, both in and out of their customer base.

"We are pleased with the rapid development and initial success of the company, proving that there is indeed a need in the market place for the services Jhump provides," said Founder and President, Jerry Humphrey.

Still in its infancy Jhump has already established a broad client base, provided rapid sourcing of critical items and equipment for customers in need, and initiated several preliminary business development studies.

For more information on Jhump & Associates and the services provided, please contact us.