ONE LAST THOUGHT ...
April 29th 1995 was not a good day for Shell .
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That morning , a small group of Greenpeace activists boarded and occupied the Brent Spar , an obsolete oil-storage platform in the North Sea that Shell ’ s UK arm was planning to sink . The activists brought with them members of the European media fully equipped to publicise the drama and announced that they were intent on blocking Shell ’ s decision to junk the Spar . Greenpeace timed the operation for maximum effect — just one month before European Union environmental ministers were scheduled to meet and discuss North Sea pollution issues .
It was a public relations nightmare and it only got worse . Opposition to Shell ’ s plans — and to Shell itself — mounted throughout Europe . In Germany , a boycott of Shell gas stations was organised and many of them were firebombed or otherwise vandalised . Hounded by the press and criticized by governments , Shell finally ceased plans to sink the Spar .
Shell ’ s uncoordinated , reactionary and ultimately futile response to the Greenpeace protest revealed a lack of foresight and planning caused by fragmented data . The attack on the Spar should not have been a surprise to the company . Shell actually had all the information it needed to predict what would happen . The company ’ s own security advisers identified the possibility that environmental activists might try to block the dumping . Greenpeace had a history of occupying environmentally sensitive structures . And the Spar was nothing if not an obvious target : weighing 14,500 tons , it was one of the largest offshore structures in the world and only one of a few North Sea platforms containing big storage tanks with toxic residues .
But even with these warning signs , Shell never saw the calamity coming . Unfortunately , their experience is all too common in the business world . Despite having all the correct information lined up , it ’ s of very little use if it ’ s not joined up .
It ’ s highly unlikely that you own an oil rig . But believe it or not , your role as fleet operator has some clear synergies with those who do . Information from lease companies , licence inspections , fuel cards , garage advisories and telematics can be overwhelming . Having these different fragmented data sources can restrict you from seeing the bigger picture , or at best take a disproportionate amount of time to put everything together .
A 2012 report by McKinsey and Company found that workers spend 19 % of their work week searching for and collating information . In addition , a survey of middle managers conducted by Accenture revealed that 57 % of respondents said that going to different sources to compile information is a difficulty they face and 42 % said they use the wrong information at least once per week .
Does this sound familiar ?
A clear message that ’ s endorsed daily in our interactions with businesses is that the problem of fragmented data is a reallife challenge to fleet managers and one of the most common reasons that companies move their fleet management away from spreadsheets .
Getting a variety of data sources , even in a small business , to accurately match one another in terms of either the format or , more importantly , content , is a complex task if done manually . In most large organisations numerous departments will each hold fragments of information that needs to be assembled and manipulated by managers in order to be useful for making timely decisions . These decisions may affect your company from the fleet purchasing method you use to more general company policies .
The scary thing is , without a robust solution to join everything up , like Shell , you and your business could be facing some very difficult decisions . �
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