The whole world is going digital and KPO cannot stay apart if we want to keep this business attractive both for the country and for investors. Some of the pilot projects implemented in KPO have already demonstrated a real business impact, such as reducing the personnel exposure, more effective business processes, cost efficiency and many more.
Nowadays IT/Digital Assets are around us in business and personal lives, thus it is becoming vital to know how to use them safely. As well Cyber Security is one of enablers of the KPO Strategic Priorities to safeguard our Crown Jewels (i.e. people, data and applications) from Cyber Threats like phishing, ransomware or targeted attacks.
Digitalization and continious improvement
Driven by the Digital Qazaqstan programme introduced in 2017 by the RoQ Government, KPO has launched its Digital Roadmap for 2018–2021. Eleven focus areas were introduced, which cover digitalization opportunities from production optimisation to process efficiency. The roadmap is aimed in making the organisation safer, more effective and the more agile place.
For example, the Telemetry Phase I project as part of the Production Optimization focus area was successfully executed in 2021, which allows acquiring real-time data from wells thus helping to significantly reduce the personnel exposure to well sites and better tune the Integrated Network Model for production optimisation purposes. Moreover, some smaller projects like, Digital Signature (internal) or Launching the drones for remote inspection, implementation of barcodes for warehouses, monitoring of key performance indicators, exception-based well surveillance, E-medical examination units and digitization of forms and work processes are already demonstrating their benefits in daily activities.
Some projects from the new Digitalization Roadmap have already been implemented, such as the use of the Menti anonymous voting tool, the pilot use of the Udemy training and professional development platform.
Besides, in collaboration with the KAZENERGY Association, KPO annually supports the Student Digital Fest (SDF) contest having engaged students of major universities in Qazaqstan. The SDF-2022 contest final stage was successfully completed in September 2022.
In November 2022, the Digital future of energy Hackathon was held, the purpose of which was to identify local potential in the field of IT and draw attention to the problems that require digital solutions in the sphere of oil production.
Lessons learned from the digital transformation in our industry show that other key success factors shall be taken into account, such as availability of an integrated strategy with clear transformation goals, effective monitoring of progress, correcting the foundations for digital technologies and retraining/professional development of personnel. Since the current Digital Roadmap was completed in 2022, KPO plans to develop a new Digitalization and Continuous Improvement Strategy to be aligned and adopted to the new reality and external trends. The new transformation program will include a digital strategy and roadmap, as well as a continuous improvement strategy.
Continuous improvement strategy was prepared at the end of 2022 with the support of Parent Companies' experts. The proposed strategy is to create a strong group of coaches who are directly related to the improvement program, based on the objectives of the business plan in the operational activities (production, maintenance) and supply chain. This scope can be expanded to other departments when there is enough experience and capabilities.
The preview of the new roadmap includes five buckets dedicated to Digital Oil Field, assets/engineering, production processes, HSE, security and auxiliary initiatives that will allow the creation of basic infrastructure, such as wireless sensors for wells/structures, digitization of paper documents and, finally, pilot projects and tests to use opportunities arising in the digital field.
In 2022, a reorganization took place and the Digitalization and Continuous Improvement team, together with IT&T and Information Security Department were combined into the Information Technology and Continuous Improvement Controllership, which will allow more effective support to the leaders of initiatives in providing planned digital tools and strive to further search for improvements.
Cyber Security Awareness Campaign
The Parent Companies' Audit in 2019 revealed a low state of cyber security maturity across its processes and controls which are required to effectively protect KPO from the evolving cyber threat landscape. As a follow up, our company prioritized Cyber Security Maturity Improvement Program in order to reach out level of Oil & Gas supermajors average. As a result a new Cyber Security Department was established at the end of the 2022 year.
Because cyber-attacks are fast-developing, we should continuously improve our security posture and all KPO Employees will participate in Annual Cyber Security Awareness Campaign, which will start in February 2023. The Campaign will consist of cybersecurity training lessons, phishing simulations, games and monthly awareness bulletins to share knowledge about how to avoid cyber threats, e.g., phishing, spear phishing, ransomware, malware, social engineering schemes, and much more.
