Lessons from Sports

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There is something that is dramatically different about the Wimbledon championships of the present day  and the currently ongoing Cricket World Cup 2015. Technology is now an inseparable fabric of these events and it has catapulted digitization with the introduction of event driven systems, analytics and visualization technologies. The fact that these events are global in scale and attract massive eyeballs, does put pressure on their content, presentation and production quality. This has resulted in some amazing analytics and some extremely amazing visualization products for display of analytical results, that get presented pre and post the  matches; on television, mobile and portal. I have been a career CIO and my natural instinct is to look for lessons that enterprise IT could learn. 

Event Driven Systems :

Some of the facts leading to the introduction of technology into the game, are remarkably different from enterprise. Unlike the enterprise, were considerable resources of money, time and talent has been spent in designing systems to increase operational efficiency, reporting to calibrate performance against goals and some really sophisticated analytics leading to insights of historical trends;  in sports, technology has been introduced to induce better accuracy into existing manual decision systems.

In most sports, the grey areas that cloud a decision add to the excitement, nervousness and hence the interest in the sport. The madness of excitement and the depths of sorrow that one is subjected to when decisions are taken in unclear situations, is what the sport really thrives on. Such decision keep the sport alive in talk and in memory for multiple years after the event has finished. The game feeds on such decisions. In sharp contrast, enterprise space is less forgiving. Decisions that don’t work out sometimes result in burial of IT systems, vendors and careers. Despite this culture of getting it first time right, technology is yet to penetrate areas that increase decision accuracy or take decisions based on circumstantial evidence. 

To enable technology to take such decisions, event driven architectures that collate data from events, need to be deployed. The DRS implemented both at Wimbledon and in cricket do exactly this. These technologies marry the real with digital. The need for DRS has been created by the hype around controversies that surround the decisions. With DRS in place that map ball trajectory, bounce, speed, direction and with the flashing bails and wickets being used in the currently on world cup, what follows is very rich data that could be analysed in various situations leading to trends, forecasts and predictions. Context associated with the event and all event attributes like ball swing, speed, batter position, stroke played etc are captured and utilised in correlations. This intelligence is used to predict possible future outcomes with various scenarios.

Enterprises capture lots of data but fail to strike correlations and run other statistical models that generate insights around multiple scenarios with context attached. Hence lack of digital resources to belt our relevant predictions has always plagued most enterprises. This result, is that most revenue and business forecasts made by sales heads meets with little challenge in the board room in the absence of scientific predictions and their analysis for probability of success.

Stakeholder Participation :

One thing that the world of sports and the news media is doing now, is ensuring exceptionally effective stakeholder participation and create a well rounded data view on all view points. Comparisons between analyst views, public view, public sentiment and constant calibration of  the event progress with these different view points and opinions, bring a completely different excitement level to the game. Viewers get instantly connected with the buzz that now is no longer limited to their living room or the confines of the sports bar. Technology has plucked each individual out from the confines of their solitude and promptly plugged them into the ever buzzing chatter of the global social fabric – the internet. People tweet as a form of expression letting know the whole world what they thing or are experiencing.

For sports and news media, these people are their stakeholders and customers. Everything they say and do means a lot to these industry domain players. While the India South Africa WC 2015 match was on, different people started to tweet different statistics, views all around.

Enterprises that sell to customers either directly or indirectly have started tracking tweets specially around product and service feedback.  Many companies today are plugged into the information super highway with their ears to the grid and are keenly listening to everything that is being said. However the same as process or format is never pursued when organisations role out changes that impacts their employees. Business to employee services are the most unprofessionally managed services with absolutely no meaningful and effective feedback looped in. One most important lesson that an enterprise can take away from the world of sport is about creating a platform that can engage each and every stakeholder on every initiative.

Data Visualization :

As the event driven systems that digitize physical world activity into data points meets the world of software that effectively co-relates this data and once the platform that engages all the stakeholders is in place, you will need a vehicle that serves this data and collects the reactions and presents them effectively to deliver a complete perspective. Today effective presentation is a tool that goes beyond just representing findings in a manner that is digestible, but rather the larger goals of presentation is to vow and awe the eyeballs to ensure stickiness. Style, slickness and a bit of wackiness in presentation styles, somehow ensure stickiness of eyeballs.

Consumerization of IT has resulted in electronic gadgets and gizmos being bought as lifestyle elements, that connect the consumer to the grid. The small screen real estate and the target device being a lifestyle element, poses a presentation challenge. No one likes to look at simple drab and dull visuals on lifestyle mediums. Even Mahatma Gandhi’s picture gets jazzed up as bit without compromising personality values; when the picture gets featured in Vogue or GQ ! Visualisation that vows at first impression gets eyeball to take interest in a space where content is fiercely competing for consumer attention.

While enterprises presentation goals are about driving the point home, there are multiple initiatives, themes and programs that are stakeholder facing where just making the point might not ensure enrolment and participation. Visualization to make the data & results look appealing to the theme and the initiative at hand; can go an extra mile to ensure enrolment. Why do some people go to Starsports app instead of yahoo sports app or vice-versa to view results of the same match. Data Visualization apart from various types of analytical output that gets belted out, forms an important attribute to consider if eyeball stickiness is the goal.

Summary :

Lessons from the world of sports for enterprise IT are as follows:

1. Venture out in spaces of customer engagement that bridges the physical world or brick & mortar with digital. Internet of Things is in place today that can get one started on this track at reasonably humble budgets. Content is king!
2. Collect all data. Correlate, detect patterns, run statistical models, but always attach context with each insight. Enterprise BI initiatives capture insights but forget to tag them with context that prevailed when those results were experienced. Big Data technologies are in place an in SaaS model that prevents this exercise from becoming an expensive affair. Insights are invaluable!
3. Create a platform to get all round stake holder view and present without prejudice alternate view points that decision/policy makers can either choose to look at or ignore. If you choose to ignore this, one would question the business value of your judgement of not collecting feedback that is being voluntarily given 24X7 about your brand / initiative / product / service / culture / HR policy/…… Perception is reality!
4. Data visualization in all output is a must. The board members who harp about being presented simple data, all appreciate a good visualization output. The same guys talk about how fantastic the soccer match results and analytics presentation was and have their preference of apps and portals and news channels to go to, based on visualization. This is the age of content competing for consumer attention, so make it look awesome.