Customer Engagement and Its Impact on the Global Community

Introduction:

I work as Smart Field Support Engineer, supporting real-time operations for Shell Nigeria. In today's highly competitive oilfield arena, real-time services provide the information necessary to instantly predict problems and make informed decisions, which leads to optimal performance, lower costs, and fewer risks. Basically, several IT tools and infrastructure are usually deployed at an oil and gas facility of interest afterwards people manage and support the structure remotely from the office. More so, from the point of initiation to custody transfer, it involves collaborative effort across all relevant disciplines.

Theory

By my assessment, customer engagement is one area I see impacting the global community. In December 2006 and January 2007, the Economist Intelligence Unit queried 311 executives on their companies' customer engagement practices and most executives believe that customer engagement

is exceptionally important to their business. Nearly 90% of all respondents say that customer relationships are either very or extremely important to the success of their business. More customer engagement, they believe, would translate into improved customer loyalty (80%), increased revenue

(76%) and increased profits (75%).

Application

A case in point for me is the other side of the coin where the team responsible for project delivery called "Remote Operations Capability Implementation"(ROCI) who are saddled with the responsibility of deploying the real-time system facilities around the production assets, just give the key players-operations staff of these facilities what they want and not what they really need. This has consequently resulted in situations where certain real-time equipments were deployed and customers never get to make use or don't bother to give them similar attention as they would to the primary production facilities. Hence, this causes loss both in profit and value to the business. And this is a clear evidence of a shrinking global community. This and other reasons are now compelling many organizations to begin to see the need for project management particularly the Agile approach which aligns to the need of the organization through constant customer engagement.

Organisational behaviour and people management is one module I know will give me the best insight into my current field because it will provide the understanding necessary to manage projects within multidiscipline, and to be able to not just to develop, lead but to manage project teams effectively. This will enhance my leadership skill in people management with better influence in optimizing team performance.

Summary

In my office, we are seated with our customers