Vallourec : From tubular-centric to customer-centric

From tubular-centric to customer-centric

04/03/2021 - SMART

by William Gamisans

As the oil and gas industries grow in complexity, Vallourec is leveraging its experience as a leading supplier of premium tubular solutions to provide an increasingly comprehensive offer of both products and services. It is our ambition to show clients and other industry players that, as well as being a trusted supplier of quality products, we are also perfectly positioned to provide physical and digital services with real added value.

For our teams, this implies a cultural shift that has already begun: going from product-based reasoning to a more holistic approach. As customers begin to grasp the extent of our value proposition in terms of improving safety, boosting asset integrity, lowering operational costs, and maximizing production, we expect our services to account for 20% of all Group sales within the next five years.

How we add value

Vallourec adds value with services in the fields of engineering, supply chain, asset construction, and life of field. Drawing on our strengths, our initial focus is on supply chain and productivity solutions.

Our supply chain services cover procurement, inventory management, preparation and returns. By enabling customers to purchase supply goods online and helping them deal with the often-long lead times within the supply chain, we can streamline their processes, saving them time, money - and hassle. Our experts also prepare products for use, performing tasks such as cutting to length and coating, and manage returns of unused product. These add value in the form of greater efficiency and reduced operating costs.

Another by-product of better supply chain management is accelerated decision-making. A customer that benefits from, for example, an accurate and constantly available inventory, is better placed to make good decisions about whether to use an existing asset or purchase a new one. Another example is in asset construction: our services help customers drilling a well know exactly what product they have on the rig floor. This lets them make decisions quickly, checking details where necessary to ensure they run the right tubular product at the right time.

Leveraging synergies

Offering holistic solutions that maximize overall efficiency means connecting the dots along the customer's value chain. As a global supplier of both products and services, we can use supply chain solutions to benefit asset construction and ensure that any challenges arising during asset construction can, wherever possible, be dealt with from a supply chain angle. By taking advantage of synergies between our different service solutions in this way, customers can enjoy improved safety and integrity, lower operating costs, and better asset productivity for greater profitability.

Developing partnerships

The move from supplying products to becoming a product and service solutions provider can be equated with Vallourec shifting from a tubular-centric to a customer-centric vision of our business. This shift is offering us new perspectives on customer challenges.

Vallourec's focus on services will result in a greater emphasis on developing partnerships with engineering, procurement, construction and installation companies, tubular running companies, and distributors. In areas like asset construction and the life of field, we are aware that we cannot work in a silo if we want to stay relevant and have a real impact on our customers' operations. Partnerships that combine the strengths of other industry stakeholders with our own are crucial.

Opening up possibilities

In the past, such companies have been our competitors. Now, as we change our focus, they have become potential collaborators with whom we can become more than the sum of our parts.

This is how we intend to add true value for customers. A perfect example of this change in perspective is our new digital marketplace, which will offer products from other manufacturers alongside Vallourec's own tubes and connections. The aim is to provide customers with a one-stop shop for all their needs in order to maximize efficiency.

Vallourec has high ambitions for our services offer. Customers across the globe are waking up to the possibilities of our new approach, with many already reaping concrete benefits.

About William Gamisans

William Gamisans heads the Vallourec Service Line, the company's dedicated organization for services and solutions. He is also the managing director of Serimax. William joined Vallourec in 1997, and has since held various senior management positions across the Group's businesses in both France and North America. He is a graduate of the prestigious French engineering school Ecole Centrale de Paris.

Read part 1: Vallourec.smart, services for customers, today and tomorrow

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