In the movie musical Grease it was Olivia Newton John who said it best: “You better shape up”.
James Crawford, the managing director of Wood Group PSN’s (WGPSN) newly formed UK and Africa division, believes his business already has.
As work volumes have declined for the oil and gas services business, in line with most of the industry as it struggles with the oil price crash, Mr Crawford knew change had to happen.
“The important thing in this market is if you stand still and hope things are going to change they are not going to.
“You’ve got to shape up.”
Earlier this month, Wood Group’s chief financial officer David Kemp set out how WGPSN business had been affected by the downturn in project and maintenance work in the North Sea, as well as a shift in rotas which led to job cuts of 20%,
Internally, the company has restructured its business to meet the tough new environment.
The first move was to bring its separate Africa business into that of the UK, as well as develop a new streamlined business model based on service lines rather than on contracts.
“It is a fairly big change in the way we are organised,” Mr Crawford said
“What we have done is restructured that into service lines. The attempt there is to make it simpler for clients to understand what we do and how we do it. Making it quicker to respond to what clients need which is really important in this market.”
The four service lines are operations and maintenance (O&M) which includes late life asset management and duty holder responsibilities.
As well there is the engineering project management, construction and commissioning division as well as industrial services, which is made up of the Pyeroy business the firm acquired in 2013.
The final line is decommissioning, a new service line for the business
“It is looking at where the North Sea is going to be in the future,” said Mr Crawford.
“There’s going to be a lot of decommissioning work, so we are set up for success in that space.
“The advantage of the service lines is lets us make sure we pull best practice from all our contracts and offer it to clients.
“Previously, to be perfectly blunt with you, that didn’t necessarily happen.”
He insists the changes – which have reduced overheads – have not “materially changed our headcount”.
“What has happened is we have redirected effort into different areas,” he said.
“The headcount area is impacted for us by what clients want to do. We don’t make choices on rotas, that is driven by clients.
“But we work with client to be sure we shape up,” he added.
Recommended for you
