The essential ingredients for successful digital transformation

In the first part of a two-part interview with Oil Review Middle East, Dany Rahal, SLB’s vice president digital for the MENA region, discusses the factors that are critical for successful digital transformation

Dany Rahal’s 24-year career at SLB has spanned various geographies, including the Middle East, with a focus on the digital and software space. Rahal was excited to return to the Middle East in 2022 as its vice president digital for the MENA region, based in Dubai, and is committed to accelerating AI adoption in the region.

Before sharing his insights on the transformative impact of AI and digital technologies in the oil and gas sector, AI adoption in the Middle East and the next evolution of AI, Rahal is keen to set the scene by sharing his thoughts on the essential ingredients for successful digital transformation.

Essential ingredients

“Everyone is talking about digital transformation, AI and all these emerging technologies. But there are several pillars that are ingredients for success, which are relevant not only for the oil and gas industry, but for other industries as well.

“The first is executive sponsorship. It is very important today that digital is a top priority for the leadership, not only in our industry but across all industries. Driving transformation top down, and having the organisation follow the lead of the CEO, is critical.

“The second ingredient for success is embracing modern technologies, and the first thing that comes to mind is data. Data is an asset that remains untapped, in our industry as well as others. This is particularly important, when it comes to deploying AI and GenAI on top of the data. In addition to effective data management, there are many digital technologies, such as Cloud, AI and ML, edge and IoT, that are critical for organisations to adopt in order to embrace digital transformation, but all need to work together as part of the infrastructure.

“The third ingredient is partnerships. The partner ecosystem around digital is very important because it provides the necessary breadth and depth of expertise, resources and collaborative opportunities to navigate the complexities of digital transformation initiatives. At SLB, partnership is at the heart of our strategy. We have partnerships with many of the technology providers, including not only the hyperscalers but also startups, which we can help get to scale and access a bigger market. Our partnership with Nvidia, for example, allows us to acquire expertise and software for our Gen AI capabilities, including domain foundational models. We also have partnerships in the region, such as with AIQ, an ADNOC joint venture. We are expanding our partner ecosystem and bringing it to the customer as well.

“The final pillar is human capital. We get so excited about the technology – but it is the people that make it happen, so upskilling and reskilling talent is important, and bringing new talent to digital literacy. When you upskill your talent with digital, you fast track the adoption of the new technology I mentioned, which means it is no longer a threat to jobs, but rather, it becomes a tool to bring value into the workflows and the organisation. The best results we see are when we equip experts in the domain with new digital tools and get them to work closely with experts in digital technology.”

Rahal highlights here SLB’s domain data scientist programme, designed to upskill its domain experts in the latest AI technologies, where subject matter experts, including petroleum engineers, geoscientists and reservoir engineers, are put through a six-month deep learning programme giving them hands-on experience in AI and data science. The company also runs a similar programme, the AI Academy, to upskill its customers (typically energy domain professionals) and university students in data science and digital technology. With their newly acquired skills, Academy graduates help their organisations adopt AI and machine learning (ML) to enhance workflows from exploration to production. This initiative has met with considerable success in the MENA region.

“These are the ingredients I see as necessary for digital transformation success,” Rahal concludes.

Watch out for Part 2 coming soon!