Advancing Information Management in the Energy Sector: Insights from the ISG Roundtable

What do Shell, Equinor, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and PETRONAS have in common? They all navigate petabytes of unstructured data, actively developing strategies to drive value from information while ensuring compliance. I had the privilege of hosting and moderating the ISG Information Management Roundtable – Energy Sector, a unique collaborative initiative that brought together leading energy companies to collectively advance Information Management (IM) maturity.

Launching the ISG Information Management Roundtable

This roundtable wasn't just a single event—it was the culmination of an in-depth external insights study, initiated by Pieter Lokker and the Shell Enterprise Information Management team to uncover insights and best practices in the energy sector. ISG and Shell co-developed a maturity model and conducted in-depth interviews with data and information leaders from five of the top ten energy organizations. Our goal was simple: to give the participating energy firms with insights they needed to drive their IM maturity.

Building on the success of the external insights study, ISG and Shell's Enterprise Information Management team jointly hosted this virtual Roundtable. Critically, beyond the initial insights study, the roundtable offers continuous access to external insights on a quarterly basis, making it a valuable forum for all participating firms.

Insights from our Inaugural session:

For this inaugural event, we were honoured to host Tori Miller Liu, President & CEO of AIIM International, as our keynote speaker. Her message was powerful and immediately set the stage for our discussions: "Unstructured data is essential to effective AI and automations". Tori presented some eye-opening data, sharing that while 62% of enterprises are already operational with AI, a significant readiness gap exists. A key reason is data quality, with 77% of practitioners rating their organizational data as average, poor, or very poor. This clearly highlighted why our roundtable discussions were so crucial and underscored the information professional's pivotal role in bridging this gap

Following Tori's powerful keynote and her data-driven insights on AI readiness, our roundtable members dove into featured member discussions addressing some of the most pressing topics facing the industry today:

• Building Information Management competence and uplifting awareness: Discussions focused on two-track training strategies, combining formal courses with contextual messages to enhance corporate IM culture and address challenges like user engagement.
• Leveraging AI to tackle over-labelling and building an Intelligent Content Discovery Platform: Insights were shared on using AI to auto-classify retention labels and identify sensitive data to streamline information access and reduce costs.
• Auto-deletion of non-records and combating Information Hoarding: Perspectives were provided on automating information cleanup in systems like Outlook and SharePoint and managing challenges such as user resistance and the need for better records management competency.
• Information Lifecycle and understanding when Information transitions from an Asset to a Liability: Discussions explored information lifecycle frameworks, emphasizing the management of information as both an asset and a liability, and the role of support networks in guiding these decisions.

The exchange of ideas was phenomenal. It was a collaborative space where our members generously shared insights and tackled complex IM and data governance challenges together.

This is just the beginning. We're excited to continue these conversations and explore future exclusive roundtables. Are you an energy sector leader facing data and information challenges? I invite you to join our growing community of thought leaders. Let's work together to turn unstructured data into a strategic advantage!