Servicing the "team behind the team" at the world's biggest sport events
Athletes are not the only ones who have to book their spot at major sporting events like the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. There is a whole team who looks after the full delegations of people who play an integral role in supporting an athletes experience in the lead-up and at an event. Who makes up a Games or World Cup delegation? Think about coaches, medical support personnel and technicians or judges and referees. These populations of people also require support to not only attend but fulfil their event-critical roles. This means registering for and securing event accreditation, accommodation, transport, uniforms, and more. That’s where Wiz-Team comes into play facilitating their participation in the Games through smart event management solutions.
One of the most critical stakeholders charged with this task in major sport events are National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and National Paralympic Committees (NPCs). They are responsible for selecting, registering, and transporting their national delegation members, guests, dignitaries, medial, staff, volunteers, and much more for each major event. Likewise the International Sport Federations (IFs) manage Games-critical delegations providing the International Technical Officials (ITOs) for the running of competitions.
Both turn to Wiz-Team to support their delegation management needs. Getting data collection and management right from the beginning helps with making smart decisions and avoiding headaches with access, logistics, and information sharing when it really matters most.
How Wiz-Team plays a role?
“Simply speaking, we help NOCs, NPCs and IFs to centralise the relevant information of their delegation members (which easily amounts to several hundreds to thousands) in Event-Works so our clients avoid getting lost in different spreadsheets and minimise the need to manually keep parallel systems up to date with the latest information,” explains Wiz-Team’s Product Owner Anh Nguyen who previously worked for one of the world’s biggest NOCs.
Event-Works is Wiz-Team’s all-in-one event management platform providing a suite of customisable tools designed to flex and scale to the changing needs of an evolving event delivery model – and of each and every client. With her professional background, Anh is specialised in working with NOCs/NPCs and co-creating the best solutions with and for them.
The power of adaptability of Event-Works
Her colleague and Delivery Manager Tom Powell points out: “Not every NOC/NPC collects the same kind of data from its delegation members and we are able to adjust quickly to each client’s needs and their ways of working. For instance some enter all the delegation information into our system themselves, others empower their National Federations (NFs) to do so.”
Tom, who brings to Wiz-Team huge event experience from his previous role with the Sport Entries team at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, explains: “We can adjust the access to Event-Works accordingly and also enable or disable the modules our clients need or don’t need such as managing accommodation, arrivals and departures (A&D), and electronic signatures. It’s literally a few clicks and, with such a configurable system, forms and features are customised in the system to suit the client’s needs.”
Once the information on delegation members is centralised in Event-Works, the data is ready to be imported smoothly into the Local Organising Committee’s larger system. Integration with other systems and IT infrastructures is another strength of Event-Works.
Streamlined Access and Collaboration: NOCs/NPCs and Wiz-Team Innovate for the Games
NOCs also use Event-Works for their own activities during the Games, in particular for access control and guest pass management at their Hospitality Houses in the host city, designed to welcome athletes, their families and fans, sponsors, and public figures during the Games. This summer, Wiz-Team has enhanced its EW Gate Pro App to allow for a more flexible access control management, either invalidating a one-off entry pass after access scan or allowing for a one-time entry or multiple entry access.
The collaboration between NOCs/NPCs and Wiz-Team for this summer’s Games kicked off several months ago. During different demo and training sessions organised together, the NOCs/NPCs not only received tips and tricks from Wiz-Team, but also learned from each other to optimise their internal processes. The mantra: share challenges and knowledge, co-create solutions and keep innovating for the future. The vantage point goes far beyond this summer and the positive side effects are potential cost-sharing and savings as well as a more suitable solution for the participating NOCs/NPCs.
This collaborative model very much reflects Wiz-Team’s vision that the enhancement of a solution for one client should benefit others in the ecosystem. This is where NOCs and NPCs, who often have limited budget to devote to a data management system, can really use Wiz-Team’s environment to their advantage.
Optimizing for the Future
Wiz-Team’s Product Owner Florence Léchot, who is currently working with a group of NOCs on optimising the Arrivals & Departures module in view of future Games, highlights: “NOCs and NPCs benefit from all the new features we launch, and they can configure them according to their needs.” She adds: “Wiz-Team benefits from this collaboration by gathering their feedback to make sure our applications are as intuitive as possible which will motivate future users to enter and update the necessary data. Simplicity and data accuracy are both absolutely key for success.”
With Paris on the horizon and a lot of efforts dedicated to these Games, Wiz-Team’s vision definitely goes far beyond…
Testimonials
#WizJourney
