Integrated services offered by Summum go well beyond the energy and infrastructure sectors, gaining more reach day after day. The company has new horizons after establishing a name for itself in Colombia, Mexico and Peru
In mid-2016, the Tiger Companies business group was rebranded as Summum. The corporation is preceded by successful ventures going back more than 50 years through a series of mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, divisions and other movements as a result of transformations experienced within the energy sector in Latin America along these decades.
The Summum Energy and Summum Projects divisions are deployed along Colombia, México and Perú, serving the energy sector with high demand in the oil & gas and energy generation sub-sectors through a wide variety of services. In the same fashion, the company offers engineering services also to mining, infrastructure, construction and other business activities.
“We have focused on becoming stronger in our business lines. Summum is a young brand supported by different companies’ successful careers; besides the brand’s short time, Summum is already an authority within our sector in the three countries where we operate,” commented company president Daniel Lucio.
It was five years ago that Daniel Lucio, a lawyer, took the reins of Grupo Summum (formerly Tiger Companies). Lucio attended Universidad de La Sabana and afterwards specialized in employment law at Universidad del Rosario. Lucio completed an MBA between 2017 and 2019 under a Tulane University (U.S.) program.
Solid, strategic presence across Latin America
Summum’s corporate headquarters are located in Colombia, and the company’s efficient performance resulted in opening offices in Mexico and Peru ten years ago offering some of the company’s services. Five years afterwards, both offices became able to purvey the complete line of integrated services offered in Colombia.
In the case of the Peru branch, the opening resulted from the company first venturing into a refinery project, and it has already increased its client portfolio, as it happened in the other locations, growing from design and engineering to ongoing operations such as supervision and operation surveillance, oil conveyance and other downstream, midstream and upstream tasks.
This solid presence provides Summum of strategic locations in the region’s energy market with a workforce above 1,200 employees, resulting in every operation being able to count with support from all three branches, no matter where the project is located.
“When hiring Summum in Mexico, projects are also supported from Colombia and Peru, and likewise if working at Colombia or Peru. Our entire team is aware of ongoing projects: we share experience, opinions and collaboration from professionals able to contribute,” the executive explained.
Oil & Gas and much more… within budget
The energy industry would hardly count with a better partner than Summum Energy. This division’s integrated services offer within this sector allows the company to take part in any phase of large-scale projects, and as a result, it has become an authority in the business, involved in Colombia’s most important projects for facility installation, production, and oil & gas conveyance.
On its behalf, Summum Projects and its engineering unit have been involved not only in fossil fuels projects, but in recent years this division’s experienced specialists have also taken part in ambitious renewable energy projects, a new market for this division.
Summum stands out for going the extra mile beyond what contracts stipulate. The company’s thorough understanding of entire operations and processes allow for detection of improvement opportunities.
“We’ve put our money in our engineering unit for operation surveillance, being day in and day out in every project, for supervision, for being on the management aspect of projects. We’ve earned an important position also at this level,” Lucio shared.
Global standard compliance from Summum within the different industries it’s involved with, position the company at the same level of the top five companies worldwide, regarding quality, efficiency and operation security, bringing added value to clients at competitive prices.
At the forefront of digital solutions and technology
Summum counts with different types of assets to support oil production, equipment is continuously being renovated and up to date.
The new addition to Summum’s inventory is its Rapid Service Unit, ideal for underground tasks, with the idea of comprising an entire fleet of Rapid Service Units.
In other areas, Summum’s TI’s department is supported by latest-generation software to operate in the different services the company offers, as working with up-to-date tech resources is a standard for Summum.
Summum Innova and Big Data
Integrating new machinery and equipment able to obtain data, with software performing actual analytics and interpretation of this information in order to create solutions able to deliver a better product is a task in charge of Summum Innova.
This area was established in early 2019 and it has brought results already both within company operations as well as in delivering more and better information derived from big data for clients. Also, new apps have been developed to report accurate, real-time data.
“Summum Innova is a new area in charge of managing, stimulating and generating innovation among the entire organization. The idea is to create short-term goals, driving individuals to propose new and improved ways to operate through our resources, through self-generation and co-generation processes able to deliver added value to our clients. Everyone out there working day-to-day in every project is coming up with ideas and creating new opportunities,” said the company president.
The importance of training
Workforce development is also a very important aspect in Summum. This area sets goals and creates training programs. The training and updates portfolio is wide as resources and methods to impart every training.
In certain areas, the company detects outstanding talent for certain tasks, resulting in employees who master a certain skill becoming trainers to fellow employees. High acceptance of employee-taught training has led to these programs prevailing through the years.
Hours of training per employee are fixed goals in this area. In 2019, Summum accumulated 21,000 hours of training, a 41% increase from 2018. The company also offers the necessary resources for individual self-training programs.
New horizons in sight
Summum still has a lot to offer to the markets in Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Nevertheless, the rest of Latin America and North America are always under radar. A special interest in the Canada and U.S. market has been raised after engaging in successful ventures in these territories. The company keeps contact with clients in North America, being on the lookout for new opportunities that could benefit Summum Projects, the business group’s engineering unit.
Ecuador, Central America and the Caribbean are also very attractive markets for Summum after witnessing the growth in the oil & gas industry, with the company’s three main markets in the region being taken care of.
“We have a strong presence in the markets we are set at, and we are also interested in current developments in North America, where we can still add value. We are also watchful of markets in Ecuador, Central America and the Caribbean, Bolivia and Argentina,” Lucio explained.
Positive results amidst global emergency
As it is widely known, 2020 came along with more than a few question marks, most brought by the COVID19 pandemic, forcing businesses to adjust operations as well as expectations.
The company reported $130 million in sales for 2019, its best in ten years; which resulted in setting high goals in revenue and profitability for 2020. But the oil & gas industry worldwide was affected by low prices derived from a decreasing demand. Summum could adjust its goals and is currently on course to a strong finish finance-wise and with double-digit profitability.
“We are currently in a good position. All of the problems are behind; we had to stop, adjust and keep going forward,” the executive said.
Bright future ahead
Moving forward to 2021, Summum has good expectations, foreseeing a 15% to 20% sales increase. There’s excitement about future projects for the company:
• Possibilities for further projects in the United States and Canada.
• Being in the final stage of a tender for a second-generation ethanol fuel production plant in North America, along with other non-conventional energy projects, and also being in the final stage of Latin America’s largest oil & gas project, the refurbishment of the Talara refinery in Peru.
• Taking part in an oil & gas storage and conveyance project through pipelines and a power plant in Colombia’s Pacific coast.
• Increase the company’s workforce from 1,300 employees to 1,500 and 1,600 during 2021.
“The last four years we’ve projected ourselves toward accomplishing the goals we set for the last five-year plan: strengthening our business lines within the three territories we are settled in, and substantially increasing our profitability year in and year out,” Daniel Lucio concluded.
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