Case Study: Transforming Strategic Relationships in the Energy Industry

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Learn how Studio Hyperset helped scope, design, build, and market an enterprise application that streamlines important logistical relationships in the energy industry.

Challenge

Every day, offshore oil rig operators such as Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes charter vessels from marine transportation companies such as Harvey Gulf, Adriatic, and SeaTran. For the most part, both parties gather information and negotiate charter agreements using static PDF spec sheets, word-of-mouth, phone conversations, email chains, and other ad hoc techniques. Because these techniques aren’t scalable, auditable, or synchronous, they create a number of frustrations and inefficiencies, facilitate unethical behavior, and often sour otherwise healthy professional relationships.

Operators routinely find that vessels have outdated spec sheets, are double booked, or have ambiguous availability schedules. Moreover, as they attempt to negotiate and secure vessel charters, both supply-chain personnel and salespeople waste hours each week emailing, making phone calls, and performing other unproductive tasks. As the following outlines, these communication inefficiencies have the potential to drive thousands of dollars worth of wasteful spending each month.

If a marine transportation company pays each member of a ten-person sales team $8,500 per month …

And spends $1,200 per month on data connectivity, cell phones, and other communication resources …

And if each month that sales team wastes 31.25% of its time on unproductive tasks such as phone calls, email chains, follow ups, &c. …

Each month, the company potentially wastes $26,938 of its communication and sales expenditures on unproductive tasks.

Dissatisfied by the status quo, in March of 2016 a marine transportation company in the US Gulf Coast expressed an interest in building an enterprise application that would solve these challenges. Thanks to a referral from our professional network, this company hired Studio Hyperset to help turn its vision into a reality.

Solution

Studio Hyperset used three distinct phases of action to build the solution. In addition to handling the budgeting, revenue analysis, and market research duties typically managed by the CEO, these phases allowed us to serve both a CPO and CMO role.

Phase 1
Market Research and Revenue Analysis

Phase 2
User Interface Wireframing and Solution Stack Prep

Phase 3
Application Development and Marketing Prep

During the first phase, we developed a portrait of the application’s total and service addressable markets. This included gathering data on the locations of the application’s likely user base, the number and location of offshore oil platforms around the world, and the average fleet size of marine transportation companies around the world. We also developed persona sketches of each user group, including an overview of the needs, interests, and purchasing habits of platform operators and vessel owners. Lastly, we used market data to create recurring revenue projections based on different pricing structures, SAM penetration ratios, and burn rates.

During the second phase, we used the knowledge we developed during the first to design a logo, wireframe the solution’s user interface, and build its solution stack. Relying on resources such as Ionic, Kinvey, and a series of third-party API integrations, we built the stack with an eye to medium-term scalability and rapid, cost-effective development.

During the third phase, we (a) used our second-phase resources to build the application itself and (b) our first-phase knowledge resources to build a range of marketing collateral intended to support user acquisition efforts.

Deliverables

Benefits

At a high level, the solution Studio Hyperset delivered:

  • streamlines charter-related communications between offshore oil rig operators and marine transportation companies
  • standardizes vessel data
  • introduces oversight into the sales process
  • places marine transportation companies’ vessel inventories directly in front of potential buyers
  • offers offshore oil rig operators a more precise sense of vessel availability
  • allows offshore oil rig operators and marine transportation companies to negotiate charter schedules and rates
  • creates substantial time- and cost-savings opportunities for boat owners and platform operators
  • offers users real-time information about vessel availability
  • helps operators find available vessels quickly and easily

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Studio Hyperset helps customers generate and analyze data, uncover valuable insights, and create engaging solutions for complex challenges. Learn more at studiohyperset.com