Deploying TAO and P&T India to replace technical experts across the globe is destroying Shell’s lead in various technological areas of the Oil & Gas industry. We used to pride ourselves for holding sooo many patents that no one even came close to owning.
When will management stop this destructive process of replacing the skills Shell developed in-house, with folks from TAO and P&T India.
She’ll has no technical advantage. GoM hosts Executed by beacon venture capitalists and shell looking to buy into. Zero technical advantage, Shell only has technical costs!
Shell has no technical advantage over other oil companies. We just make up time consuming processes like WRFM which every other company does better and cheaper than us. For example ‘wrfm’ is just production operations and optimisation in every other company.
Moving roles to India isn’t helping though and makes us look even worse.
India is just filling the numbers and not the talent. Too many I have spoken too feels like that. Like talking to an empty tin. Their discipline is a whole different thread with their excuses. "Yes, can be done" and "No, it's not my mistake" are a common theme.
In my org, multiple people with 10+ years of experience have been asked to train people in India to replace them. The notion is quite ridiculous. Literally nobody thinks it can really be done.
The cycle goes like this. Consultants come in and recommend moving roles to India as it will be cheaper. We layoff good people and hire new people in India. Unfortunately the new people take on only a few minor tasks, are not well integrated with the local teams and often not as experienced. We get less work per person and efficiency looks poor on benchmarks.
Then the smart consultants come back and point out we have too many people. We sack experienced engineers and move more stuff to India. Efficiency gets worse and so it continues.
Yeah, Boeing is a good example. Now it’s a joke, and I’m going avoid airlines with Boeing aircraft from now.
If we get rid of even 50% of the top leadership who are unbelievably expensive, absolutely corrupt and self-serving and can make Technical Careers attractive again, we can hire plenty of local and Indian talent. Don’t blame India for decisions made by incompetent bean counters in that US and Europe. India has talent but was never set up for success. I remember an id--t GM with his arrogance claiming a technical specialist like be able to master HYSIS, ASPEN and UNI with 2 weeks of training - it’s like asking a PhD to be done in2 months. He should have been fired and instead he is a prime candidate for VP. I repeat, the problem is not India but thr very rotten systems that has been allowed by an unbelievably BAD set of leaders
Agree, they should close the offices in India as they add no value and make work for people local to the asset trying to get stuff done. India office has the wrong skills in the wrong place.
They could save a huge amount by closing those offices and production would remain exactly the same - might actually improve as there’d be less distractions for the engineers on site.
Agree with comments especially post 2009. It was downhill from there, moving too much of work to India is an expensive mistake. Too many good, hardworking folks lost their roles for this expensive mistake. Heads should have rolled then.
Why do you need graduates from CalTech, MIT or Berkeley to work in an industry that is nearing sunset? Most technologies in a refinery are fifty years old. Why would a sharp person want to stay in this business? An average John Doe is good enough to keep the operating units running. Look at the likes of low cost operators - they just operate their units and make profit and not hire people from exotic schools to B$ around.
Shell hasn’t made a major discovery in at least a decade and had to buy BG to not end up producing less oil than BP. That production bump is gone and the funnel is empty to replace declining production. What technical advantage are you even talking about lol Shells only advantage is in double speak sycophants and promoting unqualified diversity
When was the last time one saw a true technical expert in Shell thriving? Those days are long gone. SMDS was the last technical hurrah we had and it was all done and dusted in the 90s.
Shell does not pay enough to hire best graduates. We get sh---y folks in Shell India (and Shell world) since Transition 2009). We are getting rejects of experienced hires. We dont get graduates from Caltech,!Berkley or MIT anymore.
Plus, technical career peaks yiu at JG3. Why would one aspire to have it.
So Shell is getting rud of technical which was long dead.
The issue is that people with the right experience are not being hired in India. So shell do a reorg and lay off people with say 20 years operational and local asset experience then expect a new hire in India in a different time zone and with no experience to replace them. It doesn’t work and actually costs money to try and train them. That is why shell are so bad now at production optimisation and asset management now. (Wrfm in shell speak).
Useless patents! Who cares? It’s a dying industry.
Patents don't pay the bills. You might not like it but TAO is here to stay and will only get bigger and bigger.
TAO stands for Technical Asset Operations
https://www.shell.in/careers/careers-in-technical-asset-operations-tao.html
What is TEO?