New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has announced a major multi-year partnership with SAP to power and accelerate rugby union’s Digital Transformation across all areas of the business.
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has announced a major multi-year partnership with SAP to power and accelerate the rugby union’s Digital Transformation across all areas of the business.
SAP, which is NZR’s first-ever major technology partner, becomes an Official Premium Global Partner, Official Technology Partner and the Official Cloud Software Partner to the Teams in Black including the All Blacks and Black Ferns.
A market leader in enterprise application software, SAP has the expertise, solutions and scale necessary to create a more efficient, connected, and innovative technology infrastructure for NZR.
The two organizations will collaborate to identify and implement innovative cloud solutions from SAP and connect data across key areas of the business to provide a competitive advantage on-and off-the-field for the Teams in Black and NZR’s wider rugby ecosystem.
The partnership will see NZR leverage SAP solutions and co-innovate across four key areas including: creating an integrated management system to run and enhance its operations, elevating the fan experience, enabling the organization’s sustainability goals, and exploring how the use of data and solutions can support team performance.
- Organizational operations: Using a digital hub of SAP solutions to create interconnected systems will allow NZR to leverage the power of its off-field systems and data to better support on-field teams.
- Team performance: By implementing SAP SuccessFactors and establishing a single source of HR data, NZR intends to elevate the employee experience and empower employees to achieve their full potential.
- Fan experience: Create new ways to connect and engage with NZR’s local and global fan base while also tapping into new technologies and platforms that enable fans to get closer to their favorite teams and players.
- Sustainability: Leverage digital solutions and capabilities that enable NZR to holistically manage its sustainability performance, while supporting NZR’s broader Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) Strategy where needed.
Angela Nash, New Zealand Rugby Commercial (NZRC) Chief Information and Digital Officer, said: “NZR is undertaking a large Digital Transformation which really needs the support and expertise of a global technology organization to help us achieve our vision of becoming the most technologically advanced rugby union in the world.
“SAP is at the forefront of digital enablement globally and have the tools to help us build a team of experts that not only share our vision but are world class in their skills and capabilities. It is great to have them on board as our first technology partner, working with NZR across all key platforms to review, enhance and enable us to provide technology systems that ensure we are the best both on and off the field.”
Scott Russell, Executive Board Member, Customer Success, SAP, said: “New Zealand Rugby has set an ambitious goal of becoming the most technologically advanced rugby union in the world. As the organization’s first-ever technology partner, SAP can help NZR meet this goal by driving Digital Transformation across all areas of the business and introducing game-changing technologies that will help NZR teams run at their best – and win.”
SAP and NZR will also place emphasis on developing additional programs and initiatives that promote and celebrate diversity and inclusion.
Through the partnership, SAP will receive various rights and benefits including branding and signage in-stadium and on-field for NZR managed matches, branding across all digital platforms, player appearances and exclusive team and player experiences.
We asked Angela Nash, New Zealand Rugby Commercial (NZRC) Chief Information and Digital Officer, further questions to find out more.
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) is undertaking a significant Digital Transformation across all areas of the business. Can you outline what the whole process involves?
The process started several years ago with a full software and systems review, looking at what the business needed to support its strategic goals and ensuring we were setting ourselves up for the future.
Our environment is quite complex and spans four distinct technology platforms that have clear Business and Technology Owners, these platforms are known as Business, Digital, Community & High Performance Rugby.
The range of engagement we have from staff, to players, to fans means that we needed to build robust foundations for the business starting with our back-office functions and then wider encompassing data, cloud, security right through to UX and innovative trials.
In parallel to this, we needed to manage the ability for the business to cope with change, adequate training and ensure business owners were (and are) involved with guiding outcomes and selecting a really strong set of partners to enable and support us.
Anyone who has been part of large change programs will agree there is no quick fix and we want to make sure we do this properly and get it right for the long-term.
How will the partnership with SAP elevate the experience of NZR’s local and global fan base?
We expect our local and global fans to see more choices for how they want to engage, improved user experience and generally a more modern approach to what we do and how we do it. Noting that we are in really early stages, with the immediate focus on making sure the foundations of our business are rock solid before we build new processes and innovative fan engagement channels on top of them.
Why is it important for NZR to connect data across key areas of the business?
NZR and NZRC are certainly not alone in the need to better understand and utilize their data and I think that part of all Digital Transformation journeys require a deep look at the purpose of data, why we gather it, how we gather it, store it and use it making sure we take all reasonable steps to meet all regulatory and legal obligations.
For us specifically, we want to ensure we utilize all the information we have available to provide business intelligence that informs decision making on and off the field.
A Digital Hub of SAP solutions will be used to create interconnected systems to allow NZR to leverage the power of its off-field systems and data to better support on-field teams. Can you explain more about this?
We are very early in the process. At this stage we are working through how best to interconnect our systems and identify what this looks like in collaboration with our partners and people. We are taking a very balanced approach delivering to the varying needs of the business and getting all the right things to work together – it’s a big job!
What this means is that our first steps are focussed on looking at our business systems, ensuring they are fit for purpose and in place to enable us to get the basics right. This will allow us to build out new services, channels and business intelligence at an enterprise level.
How will the partnership enable NZR to create an integrated management system to run and enhance its operations?
We are in the early stages of our partnership and currently, we are looking across the business identifying priority areas to focus on first. Right now, that is specifically on backoffice changes such as P&C (Success Factors) and ESG (Dashboard & Reporting).
Can you elaborate on how the implementation of SAP SuccessFactors will elevate the employee experience?
SAP SuccessFactors Human Experience Management Suite will offer individualized experiences and strategic solutions for employees, including employee experience management, HR and Payroll tools, HR analytics and workforce planning.
