FIFA World Cup 2014 – Labs Latin America

What a great time for football fans, and our colleagues at Labs Latin America in Sao Leopoldo.    The FIFA World Cup was hosted in Brazil and Labs LA outdid itself in the Innovation Center showcasing some of our amazing applications in the Fiori, Mobile, Cloud and HANA arenas…..and following the World Cup, the apps were all to do with sports or sporting events.

Labs IT was proud to be part of the total initiative and setup of the Innovation Center in conjunction with the various LoBs at Labs Latin America.   Congrats to everyone for such a wonderful event….and congrats from myself to our team there:  Luciano, Jorge, Lucas, Natassja, Limas!   Very well done.

Let’s take a look at the Innovation Center (see above) and the applications that were showcased:

SAP HANA: Performance Chip

              Innovation on the Field

How long does a player keep the ball? Where does he start dribbling? How long does it take to score? This information provides clubs with a real competitive advantage but how do you obtain this information?

The Player Performance by Chip  project, a joint project teaming Hoffenheim, SAP, Fraunhofer Institute and Crytek provides sensor based real-time analysis of player performance. Players and balls are fitted with sensors, which enable coaches to capture geo-data based on which they can measure and analyze player performance using SAP HANA’s built-in spatial capabilities. Coaches can assess various criteria, combine them and can create individually tailored training sessions.

SAP CLOUD: Event Ticketing

              The New Experience

SAP Event Ticketing helps you to generate ticket sales for your events across all sales channels. You keep an overview of your customers and costs and maximize your revenue per seat through efficient ticket sales.

SAP Event Ticketing supports all event types, such as concerts, sporting events, and theater events, as well as trade fairs and museum tours. You can plan each event individually and define which tickets are to be released for which sales channel, ranging from reservation offices to evening box offices. You manage the tickets for an event in allocations and can group events into event series. You can also manage special promotions, reductions, subscriptions, and season tickets easily in SAP Event Ticketing.

SAP MOBILE: Fan Engagement (this is my personal favorite as it really hits home being a fan)

              Put the Fan First

For true fans, the season is 365 days long. And for today’s fans, it’s 24/7, too. With the growth of web and mobile channels, delivering a consistent, engaging fan experience has never been more challenging.

But today’s best run teams are not only finding new and exciting ways to connect with their fans. They’re bringing innovative, personalized experiences into the stadium, as well, to deliver an unprecedented game day experience, while driving revenue and fan loyalty.

Fan Experience

The best way to raise revenue for teams and leagues is to get people into the stadiums and into the seats. By making live sports more engaging and convenient for fans, people will prefer to see the game in person as compared to watching it at home. Make the stadium a personalized place where the fans experience a time they never want to forget.

Here are some screen shots from the application

SAP FIORI: Player Portal

              Player Portal Prototype

The player portal combines valuable pieces of information coaches need to get the most out of their players. They can store all relevant information pertaining to players and teams and plan their training sessions according to the needs of each player. The powerful set of features allows them to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each player, injuries players might have and analyses of previous training sessions. As soon as the training has been scheduled players can instantly see their personal schedule and can prepare accordingly. In addition to planning training sessions coaches can use the tool to supervise and keep track of training execution and give instant feedback with regard to player performances.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. By closely tracking and analyzing team performance, you can identify areas for improvement and discover underutilized players that could be making a greater contribution to the team. You’ll be able to quickly spot trends in performance and use these insights to drive key strategic and personnel decisions.

In conjunction with the FIFA World Cup, Labs Latin America was also very pleased to host the AGS CxO Council Meeting.    Our CIO Ingrid-Helen Arnold was in attendance along with a number of other AGS Executives and important customer dignitaries representing companies like:

o   Coca Cola

o   Petrobas

o   Banco Bradesco

o   Bancolombia

From a personal perspective, as someone who is in Labs IT…..regardless of the fact that this was high level meeting, our CIO Ingrid-Helen took the time on a few different occasions to chat with our local Team Lead Luciano.   This is what leadership is all about….taking the time to just talk with someone who might never have a chance to actually meet them down the road.   I know that it was and is greatly appreciated and puts Ingrid-Helen in my realm of “Awesome”