CASE STUDY: Enerplus Resource Co-Source Success
As one of Canada's oldest and largest independent oil and gas producers, Enerplus knows their business well. They are an income-oriented investment in the oil and gas industry, headquartered in Calgary. With a considerable portfolio of producing properties across western Canada and the US, they focus on large oil and gas resource plays that offer growth potential, predictable production and repeatable development opportunities.
Enerplus has enjoyed great success by focusing on their core business. In order to support their efforts, Enerplus had designed and developed two in-house software applications to receive, track or manage data. When the applications needed upgrading, Enerplus realized that sticking to their core competencies had always served them well.
Since Enerplus holds significant domain knowledge and has skilled technical resources on staff, complete outsourcing of the project seemed wasteful and inefficient. It was important that any investment in new technology was practical, cost-effective and long-term. They decided to find a competent partner to help deliver their internal applications – a partner who could add value by defining the delivery of the applications, provide cost controls, and assist with the sustainment of their product throughout its lifecycle.
A co-sourcing agreement with Arcurve was the best way to meet their needs. As a flexible, collaborative arrangement, co-sourcing lets companies focus on their own objectives and avoid the business of software development. Co-sourcing funnels software development to the right service provider for “just-in-time” development. Because market conditions are not stable or constant, co-sourcing is scalable. It’s a software development process that makes room for the expanse and contraction of business requirements. Co-sourcing is joint “fit-for-purpose” development that takes into account a customer’s variable needs, and addresses the full software lifecycle. It was exactly what Enerplus was looking for.
Arcurve proposed a solution that would apply Enerplus’ domain and technology expertise, and “filled-in-the blanks” with skilled Arcurve software experts. Arcurve provided efficient and cost-effective application development, which made room for the advancement of Enerplus technology experts.
Enerplus had an outdated application that would receive data from third-party vendors, process and evaluate the data, flow the data into QByteFM (a third-party application) for invoice payment and then archive the data. With hundreds of wells, various working-interest partners and countless vendors, Enerplus received hundreds of invoices every week. Enerplus determined that, with the new functionality requirements, it would be easier to rewrite the application than to make the required changes to the old system.
Enerplus domain experts worked with Arcurve to explain the challenges and requirements of a new application. Arcurve proposed a specific solution and ran an iterative development process that involved Enerplus for short cycles of continuous feedback, making the most of everyone’s time and expertise. Within three months, Invoice Loader was up and running; a high-quality application delivered quickly.
Enerplus’ other application, Land Integrator, moves data from the Enerplus well system into their land management system. Another vendor had been working on application improvements for approximately three months without significant progress. Arcurve assumed responsibility for the Land Integrator project and delivered a complete solution within 6 weeks.
Both projects were delivered on-time and on-budget. With the extensible architecture, functionality can easily be added or changed. Since support transition is an important part of any project, Arcurve created “as-built” documentation to clarify the architecture, code base and topography to better assist Enerplus with maintenance and support of the application. With this documentation, any Arcurve team member can assume responsibility for a project if needed. Arcurve developed a solid understanding of Enerplus’ service delivery standards and can provide support any time to exceed these standards.
Co-sourcing delivered more than just applications to Enerplus. It brought significant cost control, efficient application development, an optimization of resources, and a commitment to extending the life of their applications. By bringing the best technological and domain expertise from both companies to the table, Enerplus and Arcurve have proven that co-sourcing is an excellent way to maximize an IT investment of any size.