ROS

In the Oil & Gas sector, dominated by big players and multinational companies, smaller enterprises experience greater difficulty rising up the value chain, and are subjected to pressures such as increasing labour costs and shrinking margins. As Rotating Offshore Solutions (ROS) sought to expand its operations in an increasingly competitive market, the company engaged Consulus for an organisational branding exercise to develop a sustainable business model that could help them improve their profit margins and rise up the value chain.

ROS won the Enterprise 50 Award in 2010, an award jointly organised by The Business Times and KPMG, and supported by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, International Enterprise Singapore, Singapore Business Federation and SPRING Singapore. It was awarded for the following: Sustainable Business Model, Healthy Balance Sheet, Good Management and Corporate Governance.

Business Design

To identify a relevant and sustainable brand model, Consulus conducted an organisational and customer research study at the start of the exercise. This helped to uncover areas of opportunity and shaped the development of the strategic roadmap for ROS and creation of its intellectual property.

With the roadmap in place, the organisation was reorganised: staff were aligned in terms of business direction using the company’s core values as guiding principles, while processes were redesigned to secure more business opportunities.

Insights into Challenges

An initial study with internal and external stakeholders provided key insights about the values, processes and beliefs within ROS, as well as its perceived market competitiveness within the Oil & Gas industry.

• While the management were aware of areas within the organisation in need of change, implementation became a challenge due to conflicting approaches. This stemmed from a lack of shared sense of direction and poor clarity over employee roles and responsibilities. Management and staff expressed the need to identify a way to reconcile these approaches and build a shared process to pursue opportunities.
• ROS was perceived by other industry players as an alternative sub-contractor with no value-added services. Customers felt that the relationship was purely transactional. From an outsider’s perspective, it was difficult to distinguish ROS from its competitors.
• Due to high demands on talent and resources on companies in the Oil & Gas industry, ROS had to develop a conducive workspace that encouraged talents to innovate and differentiate themselves from bigger players.

Inherent Purpose Defined

In order to determine its overall purpose, Consulus conducted in-depth interviews with ROS’s leaders. Their aspirations, tempered by the company’s existing states of ability, influence and differentiation, helped define the proposed Brand Purpose and 3-State Brand Model for ROS. The purpose statement brings out the technical and engineering capability of ROS in solving tomorrow’s offshore oil-rig problems. This also set the tone for its corporate tag-line, “In Depth. On Point”.

Restructuring and Systemising for Higher Brand Value

To transform the perception of ROS from an ‘alternative sub-contractor’ to a ‘solutions provider’, a B2B brand experience strategy based on the Consulus 4-Frames methodology was implemented. The aim was to transform ROS from being a pure supplier to a supplier with 30% consulting and 70 % advisory support. To be able to command higher margins, ROS needed to transform its perception from an ‘alternative sub-contractor’ to a ‘solutions provider’. This meant changing the way ROS presented its services, and conveying its ability to provide consulting support to its customers.

Through a workshop session with the engineers and management team from ROS, the new service experience was designed to showcase the unique solutions methodology and processes, developed by ROS. Tools were developed to reinforce ROS as a solutions provider, and strengthen its intellectual property.

Alignment to take the lead

Lasting change in ROS is only possible with the participation of its staff. To ensure the new brand purpose, philosophy and direction were clearly communicated throughout the organisation, Consulus trained key staff to be brand activists, who would in turn share their thoughts and engage other staff to be part of the rebranding project.

Consulus found that there was no pre-existing shared culture within ROS. Thus, the training sessions gave staff the opportunity to suggest common practices to strengthen its internal culture and improvements for internal communications. These included scheduled meetings to plan for future projects and continuous improvement.