SkyVision – Frost & Sullivan Award Official Document

BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH

© 2014 Frost & Sullivan 1 “We Accelerate Growth”

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Vertical Market Penetration Leadership Award

ICT in Oil and Gas

Africa, 2014

Frost & Sullivan’s Global Research Platform

Frost & Sullivan is in its 50th year in business with a global research organization of 1,800

analysts and consultants who monitor more than 300 industries and 250,000 companies.

The company’s research philosophy originates with the CEO’s 360-Degree Perspective™,

which serves as the foundation of its TEAM Research™ methodology. This unique approach

enables us to determine how best-in-class companies worldwide manage growth,

innovation and leadership. Based on the findings of this Best Practices research, Frost &

Sullivan is proud to present the 2014 Africa Vertical Market Penetration Leadership Award

in ICT in Oil and Gas to SkyVision Global Networks.

Significance of the Vertical Market Penetration Leadership Award

Key Industry Challenges Addressed by Increased Vertical Market Penetration

The flourishing African oil and gas industry is seeing greater interest and growth in all the

regions in Africa. The recent offshore gas discoveries in East Africa attracted large

international participants. Currently Africa supplies approximately 12% of the world’s oil

and it is estimated that the untapped reserves are approximately 8% of the world’s

proven reserves. Africa also has proven natural gas reserves of 513 trillion cubic feet

(Tcf). Predominantly the annual natural gas production comes from Nigeria, Libya, Algeria

and Egypt. The oil and gas industry in Africa is experiencing continued growth and there

are key opportunities due to the new exploration blocks being opened, port development,

infrastructure development projects and new refinery developments and upgrades.

However, there are specific business challenges in the oil and gas industry including the

need to improve exploration and production, to improve refining and manufacturing

efficiency and to optimise global operations. ICT innovations can be utilised to meet these

business challenges and to ensure competitive advantage.

Improving exploration includes the processing of a variety of data to identify the

previously inaccessible reserves and to improve well performance. The harder it becomes

to find oil and gas reserves, the greater the need for better, more reliable information for

the support of timely decisions. It has been estimated that petroleum engineers can spend

up to 60% of their productive time mining data in order to better manage well

performance.

The improvement of the refining and manufacturing efficiency can be gained through

greater insight, flexibility and responsiveness in the refining and the manufacturing

operations. Oil and gas companies, particularly in downstream activities, are under

constant pressure to manage costs, due to thin margins.



The nature of the industry leads to volatility in both the supply of raw material and the

demand for products. Consequently, great insight, flexibility, and responsiveness in

refining and manufacturing operations are required to remain competitive and profitable.

Global operations can be optimized through increased visibility, the mitigation of risk and

lower costs across the supply chain. The sharing of operational information including field,

plant, pipeline, and logistics data across sites, organizational units, and geographies

remain challenging for oil and gas companies. Companies need to ensure that they have

the right information seamlessly integrated and without redundancy to manage the

business and its significant asset investments. Timely data delivery between remote

locations is particularly important in the African oil and gas industry.

Due to technology development there is an increasing demand as well as growing

opportunities to link people, machines and assets. In this way resources can be utilised at

the optimum place and time. The concept of a “digital oilfield” is becoming increasingly

popular as operators, partners and service companies seek to take advantage of improved

data and knowledge management, enhanced analytical tools, real-time systems, and more

efficient business processes. Reliable connectivity is especially critical in the oil and gas

industry to ensure efficient communications in the field, in between offices as well as in

emergency situations.

Best Practice Award Analysis for SkyVision

The Frost & Sullivan Award for Vertical Market Penetration Leadership Award is presented

each year to the company that has demonstrated excellence in capturing the fastest

measured rate of change of market share of a specific vertical market. This Award

recognizes how fast a company increases its vertical penetration of the market, in terms

of revenues or units as specified.

SkyVision’s Performance in ICT in the Oil and Gas industry

SkyVision Global Networks Ltd. is a leading global communications service provider. It

has comprehensive end-to-end solutions designed uniquely for the oil and gas industry. It

is committed to expand its activity throughout Africa. The key factors distinguishing

SkyVision from its competitors include the company’s strong local partnerships, reliable

connectivity offering and its customised solutions tailored towards the oil and gas

industry.



Key Performance Drivers for SkyVision

Factor 1: Strong local partnerships

SkyVision has got a comprehensive network of local partners and representatives

throughout Africa. This positions them well with closer reach to a broad customer base.

SkyVision has subsidiaries in Nigeria, Cameroon, Morocco, Uganda, South Africa, Senegal,

Guinea and Burkina Faso. Furthermore, it has hubs and Points of Presence situated across

Africa.

SkyVision’s strong local presence throughout the African continent enables them to offer

dedicated local support and short response times. It creates a positive impact on all

aspects of the business and improves customer satisfaction. This is further backed by its

24/7 multilingual technical support centres and Network Operating Centre which provide

real-time support and monitoring. SkyVision plans to continue to invest and partner to

better serve the growing oil and gas industry in Africa.

Furthermore, SkyVision’s comprehensive Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlines the level

of service that a customer may expect. Regarding Network Availability, SkyVision offer

availability at a minimum average of 99%-99.5% depending on the band frequency.

SkyVision’s customers can also expect that Network Unavailability shall not include the

unavailability of the network as a result of network maintenance, acts of the customer, an

emergency event, unavailability of customer equipment, force majeure or any other service

exclusion. Notification by customers of a perceived network fault are classified according to

priority levels based on the severity of the problem. Packet loss, latency and target

resolution times are also included in SkyVision’s SLA.

Factor 2: Reliable connectivity and safety

Reliable connectivity is particularly critical to companies in the oil and gas industry. Reliable

as well as efficient communications are needed both the field as well as in between remote

branch offices. The reliability of connectivity is particularly crucial to ensure a real-time

information flow during routine and emergency situations. This ultimately ensures smooth

and efficient operations when needed most.

SkyVision provides reliable high speed satellite connectivity between onshore and offshore

teams in the oil and gas industry. The solution enables real-time data exchange for

exploration as well as inspection, repair, salvage and surveillance operations.

Factor 3: Customised solutions tailored to the needs of the oil and gas industry

SkyVision has customized corporate service solutions specifically tailored to the needs of

the oil and gas industry. These solutions include VoIP Services, Mobile Satellite Services,

Private Networks, Managed Firewall, Business Continuity Solutions, Managed Professional



Services and VSAT Internet/VPN services. SkyVision’s solutions are based over a wide

range of connectivity platforms. These platforms include satellite/hybrid networks, WLAN,

Microwave, VHF/UHF, 2-way radio and Fiber-Optics.

Furthermore, SkyVision provides a diverse range of crew welfare solutions which includes

scratch cards for voice calls/internet, telemedicine, video on demand, WLAN hotspots, and

on-demand entertainment. For example, the business continuity solution ensures reliable

back up connectivity with zero downtime for both on and offshore requirements.

Furthermore, SkyVision offers enhanced crew welfare (data, voice and video), real-time

upload of drilling data, on demand bandwidth for video conferencing, ROV video and

telemedicine and hubless meshed connectivity.

Not does SkyVision provide customised solutions, but it is coupled with a team of

dedicated and skilled individuals that can serve the market with its capabilities.

Conclusion

Frost & Sullivan research confirms that SkyVision proves its insight and understanding into

the oil and gas industry in Africa and its unique challenges. SkyVision’s solutions provides

multiple benefits, including the ensured effective business communications between

onshore and offshore teams, optimised business productivity, guaranteed bandwidth

necessary for real time applications, support for mission-critical business applications and

the enhanced crew welfare due to the provision of reliable satellite connectivity for high-

speed voice, video and data applications.

The dramatic growth across the oil and gas industry require new innovative best of class

approaches to managing information, analysing patterns, and optimising outcomes in both

downstream and upstream operations. SkyVision’s superior solutions are therewore

worthy recognition for Frost & Sullivan Best Practice Award 2014.

Critical Importance of TEAM Research

Frost & Sullivan’s TEAM Research methodology represents the analytical rigor of our

research process. It offers a 360-degree view of industry challenges, trends, and issues by

integrating all seven of Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies. Our experience has

shown over the years that companies too often make important growth decisions based on

a narrow understanding of their environment, leading to errors of both omission and

commission. Frost & Sullivan contends that successful growth strategies are founded on a

thorough understanding of market, technical, economic, financial, customer, best

practices, and demographic analyses. In that vein, the letters T, E, A and M reflect our

core technical, economic, applied (financial and best practices) and market analyses. The

integration of these research disciplines into the TEAM Research methodology provides an

evaluation platform for benchmarking industry players and for creating high-potential

growth strategies for our clients.



Chart 1: Benchmarking Performance with TEAM Research

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Documents

SkyVision – Frost & Sullivan Award Official Document