A sporting chance not to be missed

The race to net wins from major sporting and cultural events such as the Games is on in earnest

Latest research suggests that major sporting and cultural events are an emerging market which, despite being worth considering, is not being taken advantage of by many IT services providers.

John O’Brien, a senior analyst at market research company and consultancy Ovum, said the increasing number and type of challenges that are now being presented by world-class events, such as the Olympic Games, Grand Slam tennis and the football World Cup, are playing into the hands of canny IT companies.

Unfortunately, he said, a lack of understanding of this emerging market and its challenges has meant the IT services provider sector overall has failed to capitalise on it to the fullest.

“I have published the first of a series of reports looking into this back in April. I looked at events such as the Olympics in Salt Lake City, the football World Cup and London 2012,” said O’Brien.

“It is about global-level events that rely heavily on funding from corporate sponsorship and public sector investment.”

Growing need for solutions
These opportunities are becoming “increasingly lucrative” as a result of a ballooning demand for solutions playing to a combination of such factors as physical and other security, transportation, media and communications requirements.

The contracts, projects and agreements that now take place around such events have become increasingly IT-focused and sophisticated as the demands of managing the event and serving a global audience become more complex.

O’Brien’s report, titled: ‘Major events: an emerging opportunity for IT service providers’, finds that increased competition for funding, sponsorship and viewer or audience numbers has introduced a raft of new challenges for the organisations that manage such events.

“New demands for more robust physical and network security, and an ever-increasing amount of information to be processed and data to be managed, are adding to the complexity and costs of running major events,” said O’Brien.

“Consequently, IT systems that can manage some of this complexity and automate the more labour-intensive processes will be in increasing demand.”

Added to that, there are now new, potentially disruptive technologies, including social networking tools and mobile internet. Event participants, visitors and audiences monitoring the events remotely are increasingly using these tools and demanding high levels of service provision and availability.

“The potential for growth is significant. As a nascent market, this can provide an ideal platform from which to generate business opportunities with new and existing customer groups,” O’Brien added.

Web of partner relationships
Atos Origin has been the lead ICT provider for many Olympic Games and is working on the upcoming London events in 2012, masterminding a complex web
of partner relationships against a backdrop of immovable event deadlines.

Michele Hyron, chief integrator at Atos Origin for London 2012, said the event will deploy technology innovations to improve access to information and deliver the most sustainable Olympic Games yet.

“For the first time, we will implement a new solution, designed together with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ­ the Olympic Data Feed ­ to consolidate all data feeds to the newswires, websites and London 2012 intranet into a single solution to provide a more sustainable and efficient service,” said Hyron.

“We are expecting to increase access to the commentator information systems from outside the host city, enabling journalists to access the rich information from the offices in their home countries to reduce costs and the carbon footpr int.”

Atos Origin earlier this year released its technology roadmap for London 2012. With three years to go, details are still being worked out and further partners signed up for the vast multi-stranded, multi-speciality technology team. New infrastructure, for instance, will be designed that aims to relay the sporting results as they happen to the world within a fraction of a second.

“The focus is on ensuring technology plays a bigger role in enabling the sustainable Games ­ from designing infrastructure that reduces the energy and hardware required through to implementing solutions that reduce the need to print so many pages during Games time,” said Hyron.

In Beijing, technology partners securely processed 60 per cent more competition data than in Athens, totalling 1.5 million messages via an increasingly complicated network of media channels. This requirement is expected to increase in 2012, where newer technology trends, such as virtualisation, are expected to boost efficiency and cut down on the hardware needed.

O’Brien said that the face of major events participation is tipped to change dramatically over the next few years. Real-time communication between groups of people via Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook and Twitter will add to the audience’s experience and actually grow participant numbers, both at such events and remotely over the web.

A pattern may result, where the booming events, riding a wave of corporate and public funding, become an even more attractive investment opportunity for sponsors and funding bodies.

He said that IT service providers ­ individually and as networks of partners ­ should be aiming to provide some solutions to these emerging demands over the next few years. Advice, design and delivery of new IT services that encourage audience participation and communication will be in demand.

Further, channel technology providers have the skills to manage the surrounding IT and business processes of major events businesses, potentially saving these organisations money.

“This can leave events businesses able to focus on their core activity ­ the successful delivery of their event,” said O’Brien.

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