Outsourcing E-mail for partner and customer communications

How a North Sea operator dealt with onerous message translation

Phil Griston
Omnes

As joint ventures, collaboration, and multi-tiered contracting grow more prevalent in the energy business, companies are demanding increased functionality in electronic communications with their trading partners. Having witnessed the productivity gains generated through internal utilization of electronic messaging, companies now expect similar results when dealing with customers, suppliers and partners.

However, despite the phenomenal growth in the use of electronic mail (E-mail) in the last few years (one recent estimate suggests a 35% growth in the world-wide market this year alone), the cumbersome evolution of these systems has hindered expected productivity gains.

Recently, a major North Sea oil operator calculated that one of its regional exploration headquarters was spending over $4.5 million/year trying to establish and maintain electronic communications with all its trading partners.

The challenge

The company was running numerous gateways to translate messages between its two different internal systems and between the internal systems and those of its trading partners.

Since some of the other companies did not have E-mail mail capabilities, the operator provided several mailboxes on its internal systems for the use by the trading partners.

The problem was magnified by the fact that many of the company's trading partners did not have staff with the necessary information technology (IT) skills to support these connections, so the operator was also providing the IT support services.

Security posed another major problem for the operator. Third parties had access to the operator's systems and networks, rendering them vulnerable to uninvited visitors.

While the combined systems provided the operator a single interface with all of its trading partners, there were other problems. Directories had to be constantly updated manually, messages often got lost in the system, and retaining a skilled staff to manage the system was a drain on resources.

All of this translated into a significant financial outlay. While the costs to the operator were considerable, the benefits of such extensive communications capabilities precluded removing the network without a replacement.

The operator's goal was to migrate all its internal messaging systems to a new platform with enhanced features, but redesigning and then re-implementing the network of connections and systems with trading partners promised to be a time consuming and resource intensive operation.

This operator's situation is by no means unique. Virtually every energy company has entered the world of electronic messaging in the past few years. There is little doubt that productivity gains are significant as employees share information in faster, more flexible forms than was previously possible.

But the growth of today's systems and the widespread need for data-sharing between departments and across corporate boundaries was not anticipated when the current products were designed. Consequently, there are substantial technological barriers that must be overcome in order to implement common, manageable platforms for electronic communications.

E-Mail systems

Like many of the common dichotomies of today's computer environments, E-mail communities grew up reflecting the two main architectures of early networks:

Small groups of users, each with their own MAC or PC linked by a LAN

A community of users served by a single mainframe environment.

The common thread was always that a small group saw the need to communicate together and chose whichever means made most sense within the existing computer environment. E-mail was rarely, if ever, seen as the primary reason for choosing a particular computer environment and the choice of messaging system was most often a departmental decision, not a corporate one.

While this method has given users a great deal of choice regarding E-mail features and functionality, it has also created a growing administrative nightmare as companies attempt to integrate at least two or three different E-mail systems across their networks.

It is not unusual for Fortune 500 companies to discover they are utilizing seven or eight different systems. Even small companies that have used a LAN-based system for several years are now trying to add Internet (or SMTP) mail capabilities to that package.

In spite of the problems, multiple heterogeneous E-mail systems within an organization are the rule rather than the exception, and E-mail administrators face a challenge when attempting to integrate these disparate systems into one enterprise-wide E-mail network. The challenge is increased ten-fold if the corporation wants to exchange messages with other companies in its trading community.

Today's business world requires increased cooperation between trading partners - and even between competitors. The North Sea operator has engaged in joint-ventures with several companies which are competitors in other ventures.

Contractors, working with other sub-contractors, need to share information and must work with numerous different systems. Not only is the technology being stretched beyond its original design but management and security take on new dimensions as electronic access is given to people outside the corporation's direct control.

When reviewing the options available, the operator in this example narrowed the field to five:

Require all trading partners to use the same proprietary mail system.
Insist all messages sent via X.400
Insist all messages sent via the Internet.
Manage a mail integration service themselves.
Use a service company with communications expertise.

Option one was quickly discounted as impractical. The smaller trading partners did not have the necessary IT skills to support the systems and the larger companies had their own internal systems in place and would not be forced to migrate.

Option two was a possibility, but there were security worries about the Internet as well as concern over the lack of supplier accountability if a message was not received. In addition, most of the trading partners would still need to run gateways between their internal systems and the Internet SMTP/MIME protocols.

Option three resolved security and accountability issues for the operator, but not the gateway issue. In addition, X.400 is often seen as expensive and its addressing structure is certainly not user-friendly. As a result, extensive directory work would have to be performed.

Option four was discounted since the operator was in the energy business, not the communications business.

Option five was eventually chosen as the operator realized that using a service company would provide expert communications services for a reasonable cost.

Benefits

The service provider in this case, Omnes, offered secure, managed communications between all the interested parties' mail systems with comprehensive directory support, access to the wide-area protocols of X.400, Internet, fax, and telex, plus linkage with other similar communities around the world (primarily other centers of oil exploration).

This allowed the operator to migrate its trading partners to a system supported by Omnes with payment for the support coming from each of the subscribing partners. Each member of the community has been able to retain its mail system of choice and the operator has been able to stage its internal migration without interruptions to critical communications systems.

Additionally, by moving the management of the communications service to a company dedicated to that business, the operator is now receiving higher levels of functionality and better service than when it attempted to run a non-core business internally.

The service provider integrates technological developments into the system allowing subscribers to adopt internal systems of choice and to upgrade as necessary, rather than being forced to migrate at the same speed as trading partners.

The trading partners have also benefited from the move. They now have a service company, knowledgeable in mail systems, to support them and assist in choosing the best technology for their own requirements, without being led by the interests of the operator.

For subscribers dealing with more than one operator, they no longer have the challenge of meeting the messaging requirements of all their trading partners. Instead, they connect to the service provider which ensures the required translations between systems are implemented.

The North Sea operator has been running this setup successfully for several months. The directory services within the service have given each member of the coalition a pseudo-address for each mail system used.

This means that every user within the Community can have the directory synchronized to present all other users as though they are native to the mail system.

Similarly, fax or telex addresses can be entered in the directory. Itemized billing of the system allows costs to be allocated to the exact project, department or even user. Plus, the entire service is managed by one company, so messages can be traced directly from sender to recipient. Delivery can be confirmed and if a problem occurs, the source can be identified quickly.

Omnes launched the first hub of its Xpo messaging service in Aberdeen, Scotland last February and its second in Houston, Texas in June.