Show Me the Money - Sports as an Effective Business Model in Digital Transformation Part 1

by Evan Kirstel @evankirstel

Sports analogies to business are generally intriguing and often enlightening as to how close business and sports business models are alike. The increasing emphasis on team communications and collaboration drive home how small "huddle" spaces can get a business group more engaged in their project. As the blurring and bending of the work-home and lifestyle change, the need to be always engaged in both drives business in ways that look more like sports than ever. As Tata Communications points out in this very exciting white paper Show Me The Money, “Digital is seen by many decision makers in the sports industry as a marketing platform rather than a channel for delivering great content and experiences. The direction of travel – which we believe is correct – is to evolve digital platforms like official websites and social media channels to become content hubs for fans and a place for brand partners to integrate authentically into the storytelling.” Clearly as youth transforms itself through learning and sports, so can business models link youthful sports efforts into their business. Sports has many interesting and useful methodologies that business are use in there digital transformation today. The idea of anywhere, anytime and ondemand technology drives sports as well as the need for ever faster and agile solutions are needed by business. The split-second second has become the nanosecond society where ideas are transformed into products and delivered at an increasing rate by an increasing number of business. Certainly, there are limits and issues but the faster we can communicate, the faster we can change and those that can change the fastest will win in both sports and business. With the faster integration of products within media content driving the customer experience, the customer becomes even integrated into the product itself. Adding in artificial intelligence, expert systems and augmented/virtual/spacial reality the solutions provider and the customer become teammates. As Tata points out, "the 360-degree video and virtual reality really work with motorsports – and Dorna’s Arroyo explains how with MotoGP, you can genuinely feel as if you’re on the back of the bike. With digital channels, you can take the circuit home with you – or that’s the goal. The objective is to make this feel more and more like a reality. For example, we have a 360-degree camera that makes fans feel like they’re riding pillion on the bike.” This kind of customer customization also attracts new customer as fans and more importantly, allows the solution provider to create more products for more audiences regardless demographic. Looking at in another way, Tata points out “Digital channels allow greater audience diversification. Thanks to digital channels we can reach both more people and different kinds of people. Digital channels allow us to interact with users and also get to know them better in order to offer them exactly what they want.” This means older, younger, culture and other kinds of audiences whether active, passive, spectator or influencer. Needless to say, as a professional influencer I find the ability to provide multiple kinds of content in many different content delivery systems very intriguing. What we are learning from social media, video streaming and virtual/other media devices is that customers want content delivered to them in different ways at different times. This means each person can be watching the same movie, selecting different plot themes with different or same endings. 

Meanwhile back in the business world, like the universe, the internet is expanding the business universe exponentially. As Srini CR, Chief Digital Officer for Tata Communications suggests, "Businesses must consider the opportunities afforded to them by digital transformation to diversify, from a customer-centric point of view. As the sports industry has done, focusing on the augmentation of the customer experience will help businesses to match up with customers’ expectations." Defining customer expectations and ultimately their experience is hardly a simple task nor one that is static. As we have seen with the demise of brick retailers, online retailers provided a solution to the customer who preferred full-service delivery rather than self-service store selection. The key element online providers address was time was key to success. While each one of us has the same amount of time, how we choose to use it is very important. Moving from weekly shipping to two-day and now one-day or same day highlights our time-driven business and personal behavior. Another example is traditional broadcast network have gone from fixed time schedules when they wanted you to watch to video streaming that you can watch any program at anytime from anywhere. As a result of digital transformation nearly every industry is changing and using sports as a business model is worth exploring now.

Summary - Innovative business models driven by complex time-driven, technology-focused products and solution provide, not just once and done but continuous customer value. Sports models are ideal to show that like contact sports, customer contact in business is vital to success. Tata has "scored" a touchdown or goal showing how sports models can be linked with business regardless of the industry. I would like to thank Tata Communications for the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you.

Reference Links:

https://www.tatacommunications.com/digital-futures/show-me-the-money/

 https://www.tatacommunications.com/blog/2019/03/eyes-on-the-prize-learnings-from-sport-part-1/

 https://www.tatacommunications.com/blog/2019/04/eyes-on-the-prize-learnings-from-sport-part-2/

 https://www.tatacommunications.com/blog/2019/04/engineering-excitement-redefining-storytelling-of-sports-through-tech/