Global demand for new infrastructure, utilities, and industrial process plants has been increasing in line with the growth of regional economies. While the recent leveling-off of economic growth in some global regions has reduced the number and scope of new capital projects; recently completed process, utility, and other industrial projects must still transition to the long-term operations and maintenance (O&M) phase.

ARC Advisory Group research indicates that most industrial managers now appreciate the risks of cyber attacks on their facilities. While some are still reluctant to take the necessary steps to address these risks, many have invested in cybersecurity solutions following standards like AN-SI/ISA-62443 and NERC CIP. They expected that this would solve their problems, but are finding that this is just the start of a never-ending stream of requests for additional cybersecurity technology and resources to manage changes and analyze reams of data.

The MOL refining group in Hungary uses an operational technology (OT) enterprise data model that provides a real-time infrastructure for integrating real-time operational data with information technology (IT) business data to optimize production and obtain on-going business benefits. Tibor Komróczki, the Process Information and Automation Leader at the MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas Company, discussed the company's enterprise transformation and the value it brings with ARC Advisory Group.

Thanks to relatively new technologies such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, companies operating in the US shale formations brought over one million barrels per day of incremental oil to global supply over the last year, or more than 1 percent more than current demand. Due to this oversupply, oil prices declined almost 70 percent since June 2014, despite making a temporary recovery last summer and a small surge over the last couple of weeks.

In its purest form, the discipline of process control applies control theory to design systems that produce desired behaviors. However, changes in automation technologies have added considerable distractions over time, while new technologies have helped demystify some of the traditional work.

India's Economic Survey 2015–16, a flagship annual document of the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, evaluates the previous 12 months, summarizes the performance of major development programs, and highlights the policy initiatives of the Government and the prospects of the economy in the short to medium term. The Economic Survey, prepared by the Chief Economic Adviser, Arvind Subramanian, set the scene for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's third annual budget on February 29, 2016.

Due in part to industry restructuring, the move from on-premise to SaaS enterprise software solutions, and the strong US dollar, the enterprise software suppliers included in this quarterly ARC Advisory Group report cumulatively showed negative business growth year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2015.

These suppliers recorded combined quarterly revenue of $24.3 billion, representing a 3.1 percent year-over-year decline (when converted to US dollars). The year-over-year change in supplier revenues ranged from a reduction of 12.9 percent to growth of 8.5 percent.

India's information technology (IT) services industry continues its upward momentum as most of the IT services companies covered in the report exhibited above-average growth. In this report, we analyze the third quarter of financial year 2015-16 of India's IT sector and compare it with the same period of the previous year.

ARC Advisory Group organized a well-attended session at the 20th annual ARC Forum in Orlando last month on modularization of automation solutions and plant and process design. As discussed in a recent ARC Strategies report, modularization breaks down systems, plants, processes, and unit operations into standard, modular components, much like those popular children's building bricks that can be mixed and matched freely to make any number of different creations.

Automation suppliers saw their revenues drop by 5.5 percent during the fourth quarter of 2015. Depressed oil and commodity prices and the strong dollar continued to impact the performance of the automation market. Slowing economic growth in China, once a major growth engine for automation, has also contributed to the depressed revenues and order taking reported by many suppliers. Every quarter of 2015 saw negative growth to varying degrees and, taken as a whole, automation shipments decreased by nearly 4 percent for the year compared to 2014.