The document discusses the need for oil and gas companies to derive value from operational data through analytics. It notes that the volume, variety, and velocity of technical data is increasing, particularly with unconventional resources like shale gas. This will drive companies to focus IT investments on data management, analytics, mobility, and real-time monitoring to better optimize assets and productivity, and improve financial management and cost control. While many oil and gas firms use analytics, most still rely on offline tools rather than continuous real-time analysis and few have implemented mobile analytics.