Showing posts with label Billing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Billing. Show all posts

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Those Annoying Fees Are Due.

A key element of People, Ideas & Objects value proposition is that the costs associated with software development are allocated across our population of subscribing producers. The more producers we have subscribing to our development, the greater the allocation of these development costs across a larger denominator. Our cost - plus method of charging the producers the costs associated with development, and allocating these costs across a large base of producers provides a substantial value proposition in comparison to the traditional means of billing by software vendors.

Another element of our value proposition is that with a large subscriber base we quickly acquire the resources necessary to approach engineering the appropriate software solutions. When the traditional software vendors are developing one-off solutions they are usually unable to allocate the costs beyond one or two subscribing customers, therefore the costs to engineer the solutions quickly exceed what those customers can tolerate. With People, Ideas & Objects value proposition, our ability to engineer the solution to the ideal level on behalf of our entire subscribing base is easily attained as no one individual producer is asked to disproportionately incur intolerable engineering costs, and all of our subscribing producers are able to acquire highly engineered solutions.

The following is a quick summary of the fees and penalties that are due for producers subscribing to People, Ideas & Objects.

2010

Recall that 2010 was the year in which we began our policies of assessing our fees and penalties. Effective 2010 all subscribing producers, irrespective of the date in which they subscribe, are required to pay all fees and penalties from January 1, 2010 forward. 2010 was also the year in which we implemented our policy of assessing penalties on any outstanding fees after March 31 of the assessment year. These penalties are assessed at 300% of the years fees. (Please see our recent post entitled Free Riders and the Participation Bonus)

Therefore producers wishing to subscribe to People, Ideas & Objects are subject to the 2010 $1.00 fee and $3.00 penalty per barrel of oil equivalent per day of production.

2011

Fees for 2011 have been determined to be $1.00 per barrel of oil equivalent production.

Therefore to become a fully subscribed producer member of People, Ideas & Objects the producer would take their daily production volume of x boe / day x $5.00 (total fees and penalties for 2010 and 2011) = producers subscription fees.

It is now time for producers to act. Review of our Revenue Model will inform producers how they can participate in the development of People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. Producers can contact me here for further information, or to begin the process of their participation.

Monday, January 04, 2010

2010 Funding Policies and Procedure

Establishing 2010 as the year that this project stops the passage of time without consequence. We have a problem in oil and gas. That problems definition, size and scope is generally understood and agreed to. The current oil and gas companies organization models are unable to meet our needs and they are certainly not positioned to address our future. And by "our" future it is intended to define societies future. For this reason we need to move to begin the development of the Preliminary Specification, and have it completed in 2010. The next blog post will document the budget and planning necessary for this to occur. Key to attaining these goals is the scope of the effort has been determined to be 100 "People" years. People years is the same as the gendered "man" years in defining what the effort is. With statement of these goals it is necessary that we create the mechanisms to raise this money.

The budget will also document that the 2010 capital requirements total $10 million. By stating this it shows the serious nature of properly identifying the user community. The May 2004 Preliminary Research Report documents the issues the oil and gas industry is currently facing. The document also establishes the accuracy of the research that has been conducted in this weblog. Now that management of the oil and gas companies understand these issues, they should also understand the need to act.

Therefore I want to reiterate that the targets for funding these developments are primarily to the shareholders and oil and gas investors. They are the ones that have been adversely affected by managements co-opting the governance frameworks to better secure their existence. Clearly investors want and need an alternative governance and organizational method to build and manage their oil and gas assets. People, Ideas & Objects makes these changes in the Compliance & Governance Module of the Draft Specification. Our secondary markets are the National Oil Companies like Pemex, Petronas and Saudi Aramco. Quasi governments and corporations who hold the dual role of managing their countries oil and gas resources. Lastly our openness of communications enable the International Oil Companies and Independent producers to contact us and participate. The benefit in being part of this development is to have their unique organizational needs met by the software being built, and the CISP's service based offerings. Lastly Start-ups, primarily due to their lack of any substantial production, are also welcomed to this development.

Fees for 2010 have been set at $1.00 / BOE / Day. (A producer that produces 50,000 / boe / day would be assessed $50,000 for 2010). These fees are due and payable on or before March 31, 2010. Invoices will not be provided outside of this blog post. We are also establishing a Penalty component as follows: 1) Penalties are assessed on March 31 of the current year. Penalties are 300% of the years fees. 2) Any participant to this development will need to make up any and all Fees and Penalties back to January 1, 2010. Therefore if a producer joins in 2012, they will need to pay the Fees and Penalties of 2010, 2011 and 2012 before they would be entitled to participate in these communities, developments, or use of the software. Choosing to wait to join this development will preclude the communities and developments ability to cater to the producers needs. As time passes the inertia of these developments will make it progressively more difficult for one firm to address the scope of their development needs. 

The Business Model of People, Ideas & Objects provides substantial value to our subscribing producer firms. The basis of these developments uses the cost - plus model. Where these costs are amortized over the participating producers, once. Our objective, and that of the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP) is to provide the innovative oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas exploration and production.

Management may want to sit back and continue to belittle this process. Noting that it doesn't have this and hasn't got that. That it is a start-up with no proven record of delivering any commercial software. If the research, business model, user focus, using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct, and our understanding of the oil and gas industry from a business point of view doesn't sell you, nothing will. Our competitors will be far better at selling you the next great technology that comically brings you closer to your customers.

To participate please contact me at this email or call me by selecting the "Call Me" service on the bottom of the left hand column. And for those individuals interested in joining, please join us here.

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