By David Owen
September 2 – As television and the globalised market for players fuel the increasing internationalisation of the fan bases of leading football clubs, digital technology is of growing importance for clubs seeking to communicate with, and generate revenue from, these supporters.
So Manchester United’s announcement on Wednesday of a new global partnership with the IT services company HCL Technologies is potentially a lot more interesting and significant than the vast majority of such proliferating commercial tie-ups between multinationals and Big Football.
Under the deal – which makes HCL, a company founded as Hindustan Computers Limited in the 1970s by Indian industrialist Shiv Nadar, United’s Official Digital Transformation partner – a new lab is to be set up inside Old Trafford.
The aim of this ‘United Xperience Lab’ will be to explore how the club uses technology to “create a unified fan experience” for supporters and in the process set a new “engagement benchmark” in the world of sport.
“The possibilities of what we can achieve are endless,” claims Richard Arnold, United’s group managing director. “Through digital transformation we hope to change the way in which our fans experience and interact with Manchester United. Together with HCL we aim to develop innovative ways to connect with our fans around the world, providing a blueprint for other global organisations.”
Anant Gupta, HCL’s President and chief executive, believes that with enterprises facing “an explosion of digital content and experience interfaces there is a growing need for a partner who can orchestrate these value chains and harness them for business benefits”.
The partnership with United will, he says, “enable HCL to create and manage these digital assets at a scale which will make it a prototype for successful digital co-innovation in any industry/organisation in the world”.
This is an important season on the field for the Red Devils, as they strive to recapture their former position of pre-eminence in the English game under Louis van Gaal, their inventive Dutch manager.
Since an initial public offering in 1999, HCL has focused on what it calls “transformational outsourcing”, offering “an integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and research and development services, and business services. The company has over 100,000 employees.
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