Future Downstream 2019 - BP "Growing new capabilities in the digital space"

Elena Cinquegrana - Director of Digital Products & Partnerships, Downstream Digital at BP

Which is the area of growth within BP in 2020?

Our main area focus at the moment is growing our capabilities in the digital space. We are investing a lot in new talents, especially those workforces that are not coming from native oil and gas. Attracting talents that are coming from a different background especially product management, is my area, but also focuses on consumers and customer experience. So, we are looking at delighting our customers with new products. We are looking at optimising our operations and making sure that we are relevant for what is happening in our world. We are an energy company so, making sure that we are embracing everything that is possible to make our life much better.

So how does BP attract the best talent for each digital department?

We are really creating a lot of new capabilities, and actually what we do is making sure that in our curriculum for different roles, they have the opportunity to work in different parts of the organisation. You might come as a UX Designer, but actually, then you can become a Product Manager. But at the same time what we are really keen on is that they got exposure also too. Our operations, they can go to our forecourt or retail stations, or they can actually go to the refinery. So, making sure that they have a different mix of experiences, we are a very good company to actually start your career as well. We offer different types of schemes that you can go to to do a Masters. We have a connection with Academia, so it's a very exciting place to be where you can not only be an engineer, but you can come from every type of educational background basically.

So what is the most exciting technology going on in the Downstream Market?

I think everything that is around data analytics and prescriptive analytics is really what is the most exciting. Data science has brought a completely different perspective in the way in which we analyse data and the digitalisation is helping us to be quicker in consuming that data. As I was saying during the panel this morning, we are using that also to make smarter maintenance for our assets. So, making sure that our operators can access information that is really relevant for the tasks that they need to perform be that on a plant, be that in our Logistics, so it's a mixture of different tools. There isn’t one product that fits it all it’s actually kind of making sure that we can adopt different enablement’s to derive value and it's really exciting because you know, I'm coming from a place where I was on a rig in the middle of the North Sea or in the Gulf of Mexico or in a refinery with a piece of paper and writing my reports with a pen, now actually I can have my iPad and my guys can have an iPad to access that, so it's more the portability and the dynamic integration of data and it’s absolutely fantastic.