Global Research and Consultancy Company Frees Analysts from Time-Consuming Manual Data Collection Tasks

The global research and consultancy company reduces time spent on data collection by 95%, empowering its analysts to unlock new insights from large amounts of oil and gas data with a streamlined approach to information retrieval, driven by Kofax Kapow™.

Clients from all over the world rely on the global research and consultancy company for trusted insights on every sector of the global energy, metals and mining industries. To keep its research services ahead of the game, the company continually expands the depth and breadth of its industry data and analysis. Recently, the company identified an opportunity to deliver new insight to clients by creating a unique upstream oil and gas offering: the North America Well Analysis Tool, which reports on the performance of oil wells across the continental United States.

The operations director explains, “To develop the North America Well Analysis Tool, we had to gather data on tens of thousands of wells. We source the majority of this information online. When you consider that there are about a thousand new wells being drilled every week, and between 30 to 40 data points that we have to obtain from every single well, it adds up to a huge amount of information—more than we could ever collect manually.”

To realize the full potential of the Well Analysis Tool, the group knew that it needed a consistent and streamlined way to acquire big volumes of data. It wanted to empower teams with easy access to timely, accurate information, so that they could focus on analysis and research work. Driving a standardized approach to data aggregation was also a priority, as this would allow the company to ensure that the data was collected and used in full compliance with providers’ terms and conditions and copyrights.

The company found the answer in Kapow, a powerful information integration and automation platform that makes it quick and easy for users to harness data from a wide variety of sources. Today, the company uses Kapow to automatically extract data from websites and integrate it in a central database.

The operations director comments: “We have been able to dramatically increasethe size of the data set that forms the core of our Well Analysis Tool, which now comprises approximately 16 billion data points. It is the largest single data set that we’ve ever compiled—and it’s something that would have been impossible for us to put together without Kapow.”

The introduction of Kapow has been a catalyst for a highly standardized and structured approach to data collection.

The operations director says: “Since introducing Kapow, we’ve established a group focused on data collection. If anyone wants to start gathering data, they have to submit a formal request through this group. It is making it much easier for us to keep track of all data collection activities that are happening, and to ensure that analysts are respecting proper information copyright and usage conditions.”

Thanks to Kapow, the company has achieved its goal of harnessing information rapidly and efficiently.

The operations director explains: “If one of our analysts were to manually collect data from a website, it could take an average of two to three days to extract the information they required. With Kapow, we’ve been able to reduce the number of person-hours required for data collection by more than 95 percent. That means that analysts spend just two to three hours on data collection tasks that would otherwise take days.”

The time savings means that teams can focus on value-added activities that ultimately help the company deliver a better service to its clients.

The operations director concludes: “While providing data to clients does form part of our service, the research and advice we shape using that data are by far the most valuable assets we offer. Kapow gives our teams more time to explore the data and uncover new insights.

“Thanks to Kapow, we can provide higher-quality service to clients, so they can better understand their markets and make smarter strategic decisions. It’s a win-win situation: sharper analysis helps our clients run more competitive and profitable businesses, which in turn makes us more competitive and profitable.”