A low cost production accounting system is not enough

The issue with the low cost production accounting system

In a recent posting to LinkedIn, comments from an oil company contact stated that high levels of investment in different kinds of production accounting system were unsustainable. The poster invited people to consider whether it was time to concentrate on value for money by investing in a low cost production accounting system. I won’t link to the post because I want to focus on the general issue that it raises.

The implicit suggestion is that buyers in oil companies are not already interested in value for money. This is a little insulting. The point is that a low cost production accounting system isn’t enough. The relationship between cost and value is nebulous at best. Oil and gas companies select production accounting and reporting systems based on a range of criteria but there may be issues. Sustainability, appropriateness, experience, fit, technical architecture, and many others.

Even if two products are functionally equal, it does not mean that the lowest cost of the two will be selected. I might believe that the higher cost is justified by a pattern of investment in long-term R&D that will benefit me. Or maybe that the level of support will be higher.

The difference

Given the above, and the fact that you might have seen us advertise a named user subscription for energysys.com at £500 per month, you might reasonably ask whether we’re a low-cost provider. Why don’t we charge more for a product we think is the best in the business? The short answers are that we’re not, and we could!

The focus of our business model is value and innovation. While we certainly want to reduce costs, this is not as an end in itself. It is a result of our relentless focus on identifying and eliminating anything that does not add value. We built the most advanced infrastructure, with the most flexible software, in a bid to deliver to numerous clients. This way, we can transform the economics of the market.

If your average low cost production accounting system doesn’t have the same features and benefits that EnergySys does, the question must be asked: where is the real value?

The unique aspect of our service is that we can offer the same enterprise production accounting system to companies with one or two users. We simultaneously scale to firms with hundreds of users, using a pricing model that represents real value for everyone. Instead of relying on a low cost production accounting system without features that drive a business