Motor Oil Group CIO Nick Giannakakis

The previous BAT CTO joined the €9.5 billion Greek energy conglomerate at the get started of 2020: the to start with time the organisation has had a team CIO purpose.

Motor Oil Team CIO Nick Giannakakis believes the purpose of the Main Facts Officer is to be the “custodian of electronic transformation”.

The previous Main Technological innovation Officer at British American Tobacco, Giannakakis joined the €9.5 billion income Greece-dependent energy conglomerate at the get started of 2020 sitting down on its government administration workforce, the to start with time the organisation had a team CIO purpose.

Running in the southeast region of Europe, Motor Oil started as an oil and gas small business and its Corinth refinery is the 2nd-most significant in Europe. It is now an stop-to-stop energy small business as just one of the most significant merchants in the region with extra than one,300 advantage retailers it sells immediate to the client by way of makes like Cyclon and Coral Gasoline, renamed following the acquisition in 2010 of all of Shell’s downstream functions in Greece.

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Speaking with NS Media Team, Giannakakis discussed that the team – forty seven.four% owned by the notable Greek Vardinogiannis relatives by way of a holding company and the relaxation of its shares shown on the Athens Stock Trade and the London Stock Trade – also has a media small business and immediate-to-client utility small business, when a little lender was also not too long ago added to its portfolio.

“Motor Oil is a team with extra than 50 many years of heritage,” Giannakakis mentioned, and that following a successful interval of expansion and development the management started imagining about its technique to technological innovation.

“There was no purpose as Team CIO, while everybody on the government administration recognized technological innovation as actively playing a pretty significant purpose in the expansion of the team. There was an evaluation from a 3rd get together about the require for a Main Facts Officer dependent on the company aspirations, and the end result was to create the CIO purpose as aspect of the government management workforce.”

Electronic Transformation Custodian

Giannakakis described his CIO remit as being the interpreter and defender of the energy conglomerate’s electronic ambitions, helping rework its existing functions, concentrating on a greater knowledge, and embedding electronic DNA in a what was a standard oil and gas small business founded in 1970.

“Everyone understands that the energy sector is on the verge of transformation,” he mentioned. “Therefore the purpose of the CIO is – almost nothing extra, almost nothing less – the custodian of this electronic transformation. As aspect of the remit of the purpose the CIO demands to be equipped to interpret and protect the electronic ambition of Motor Oil Team.”

To rework its existing functions and enable create new small business styles, Giannakakis mentioned it was his purpose as CIO to introduce some new terminology and methodology.

“You require the CIO to be equipped to get the approach, interpret to actionable things, and introduce for the to start with times in our team terms like agility and layout imagining. And at the stop of the day to be equipped to impose on the organisation – this pretty successful organisation – a electronic DNA,” he mentioned.

Giannakakis has been in purpose for 6 months as team CIO at Motor Oil, and described the combination of Covid-19 and the oil cost war which has observed a steep tumble in costs as a “double jeopardy” of complicated functions going through the organisation and the sector.

The response has been to accelerate electronic working initiatives which has observed a significant maximize in adoption throughout its head place of work, production and retail environments – with the Motor Oil Team board chaired by billionaire oil and transport magnate Vardis Vardinogiannis assembly remotely for the to start with time.

“I believe it is in our nature to be equipped to adapt,” Giannakakis mentioned. “I have observed people today that in the commencing have been never applied to electronic systems not only be equipped to conduct perfectly, but also to prosper.”

In the retail house, Giannakakis mentioned that even with the crisis Motor Oil did not halt its money expenditure investments. Rather it was pressured to prioritise.

For the CIO, this was to focus on the shopper knowledge and programmes which focus on a return on their technological innovation investments.

“Because we are in advantage retail, we have to struggle for the time of the shopper – the time they arrive in the petrol station and the minutes they invest there,” Giannakakis mentioned, introducing that the arrival of plug-in electric powered vehicles will wholly rework the standard petrol station.

Renewables and Electronic Twins

“I loathe to use that motto that a crisis is not just a obstacle but also an option, but in our circumstance we have observed some pretty interesting movement,” Giannakakis mentioned, noting that when pure gas gross sales had lowered there had been a significant maximize in non-gasoline retail and its e-commerce platform to the extent Motor Oil has started a relationship with a few courier companions to tackle the in general volume of transactions.

“Independent of the Covid situation or the oil cost war, our small business today is going through a significant transformation curve,” Giannakakis mentioned. “CO2 reduction and electrical vehicles will rework the in general petrol station knowledge.

“It will force us to focus on personalisation, frictionless knowledge, and other alternatives like blockchain or other platforms.”

Giannakakis mentioned that energy corporations desired to comply with the innovation curve, and focus on investing in renewables when also seeking at bettering the existing production and oil refinery method.

“We have to comply with that curve,” he mentioned. “We are concentrating on what we connect with the electronic refinery we have our North Star which for us is the electronic twin.”

Giannakakis cited Norwegian energy huge Equinor and its CIO Åshild Hanna Larsen, recognised as Europe’s major CIO in a 2019 initiative, as sector leaders.

“Equinor for us is just one of the North Stars – if you see how they develop their electronic twin, it is wonderful,” Giannakakis mentioned. “I was fairly pleased to see this type of movement from a standard organisation.

“At the exact same time we are greatly investing in renewables, and we have to see how can we utilize technological innovation to the renewable sector.”

Edge Computing and Prescriptive Analytics

Giannakakis worked at BAT for seven many years, Swiss luxury manufacturer and retailer Richemont for a few many years, and Coca-Cola for 6 many years.

Now at energy conglomerate Motor Oil he famous edge computing and prescriptive analytics as some of the rising technological innovation set to have a large impact on the sector and past.

“Being aspect of an organisation with pretty heavy production, I’m commencing to be impressed by Edge Computing,” he mentioned. “I believe Edge Computing is going to rework heavy sector organisations it is certainly a video game-changer for all the large heavy industries.

“I’m also seeing that prescriptive analytics is a truly a video game-changer. I have observed extra corporations get the previous action from predictive to prescriptive,” he mentioned of being equipped to go past anticipating what is possible to materialize, to deploying the systems now suggesting the greatest courses of motion to get.

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