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Between 2017 and 2019, Repsol—a Spain-based multi-energy company—set its sights on two colossal goals: to digitalize the entire company from top to bottom while also working to become the industry’s first carbon-neutral provider by 2050. Simple enough, right?
How to approach these lofty objectives, however, was less straightforward. But leadership knew they were closely correlated: carbon neutrality would be impossible without significant transformation. So, to start, they decided to look inward—and to trust their human intuition.
“In our vision, it was key that we had people leading our progress and the business and corporate functions owning this transformation,” said Valero Marín, Repsol’s Corporate Director of Digitalization and Global Services.
From day one, Marín and his team recognized that neither objective was an acute business challenge with a tidily outsourced solution. These were company-wide processes that had to be created and driven from within—and they required long-term commitment.
“It’s like the gym,” says Enrique Fernández Puertas, Repsol’s Chief Digital Officer. “It’s not enough if you just pay for the membership. You have to go there every day.”
Combining the power of people with business ownership
Founded in 1987, Repsol wasn’t originally a digital-native business; it’s been consistently innovative, sure, but it has also largely operated like a traditional player. And like many traditional oil and gas companies, it’s spent the past several years grappling with the pressures of a fast-changing market and an increasingly digital economy.
Luckily for Repsol, its size—in comparison to traditional industry giants—has been a transformational advantage. The company has always prided itself on its ability to remain nimble and adapt quickly. And back in 2017, when it came time to build up its Digital Program—the moniker for its overall transformation effort—that’s exactly the kind of organizational agility that was required.
Marín and his team first made sure that each of Repsol’s business units would be involved in the Digital Program to foster a collaborative environment, and, most importantly, earn each individual unit’s overall buy-in on the initiative’s direction and purpose. Then, instead of “falling in love with solutions”— a phrase that’s been growing in popularity amongst the C-suite class for years—the company focused on diagnosing each business’s pain points, letting individual problems drive to potential solutions. That approach fit perfectly with the other half of the aforementioned corporate maxim: “Fall in love with the problem.”
To meet the diverse business challenges that emerged during this step, Repsol established nine digital hubs—from AI analytics to UX design and blockchain—to provide strong capabilities across the Digital Program’s scope. Building out these hubs took a balanced approach: build, borrow, and buy. In some instances, Repsol turned to external service providers and experts—such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG)—to “borrow” guidance and tools. For other needs, Repsol decided to “build” in-house solutions, such as a highly skilled UX design team—which Puertas thinks is one of the best in all of Spain. And sometimes it had to “buy” key elements, like various platforms or tools from enterprise SaaS providers.
Altogether, the digital hubs have become highly efficient service centers across a vast variety of transformational needs around the company—especially in AI data analytics, which makes up approximately 60 percent of the Program’s effort. One of the initiative’s greatest successes is ARiA, a proprietary cloud-based data and analytics platform built to leverage company data toward maximizing business value. The product has been so successful that Repsol has begun to offer a commercial version of the product for external use.
The Digital Program even inspired sweeping upskilling initiatives throughout the organization, such as a hands-on data school where individuals from all sides of the company are given a chance to learn data, analytics, and other AI tools. There are even “hackathon” contests between different business teams to accelerate the development of fresh ideas and solutions. Since day one, the Digital Program’s success has relied on people—and now those same people are able to enjoy its success.
“It’s not only a matter of technology,” Marín said. “It’s a matter of people.”
Joy of the process
Since the launch of the Digital Program, a transformative stream has spread throughout Repsol— in large part because of the powerful buy-in from the individual business units. “The program has been influencing the whole company,” said Marín. “Not only when deploying technology, but when facing other challenges or other endeavors.”
From office management to HR, the Digital Program’s playbook has now proved itself time and time again. Throughout the digitalization process, that playbook has transformed into a widely applicable roadmap. And as Repsol’s leadership always hoped, this has been true for the company’s slow but steady push toward carbon neutrality.
Today, Repsol dedicates much of its new analytical prowess to integrating its carbon-neutral goal across its value chain—from its industrial assets and facilities to its relationship with its customers—in order to learn and understand how to use energy more efficiently. At Repsol, there is no greater goal than carbon neutrality—Marín says it is the chief short-, medium-, and long-term organizational goal. Roughly 60 percent of the Program’s initiatives tie back to sustainability.
There is, of course, still a long way to 2050. Since announcing both the Digital Program and its carbon-neutral pledge, Repsol has introduced other projects, all with their own set of long-term timelines and lofty objectives. Throughout, however, the company has maintained its focus on the value of the digitalization itself, and what that journey can provide to their company and its culture.
“The joy of the process is not only achieving the goal,” said Puertas, “but also enjoying the route.”
This article was produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Boston Consulting Group.
