Image by vwalakte on Freepik
Blog by Joe Pacitti, CeeD Managing Director
I am often in team meetings where internal discussions have turned to one of our agenda items around planning and performance, where analogies to sport are dropped in to expand and explain a point.
But that is just perhaps the hygiene factors which of course are important with a "sports chat" in many work-related meetings.
Which takes my thoughts to the Olympics, and it would be brilliant to acknowledge some of the incredible engineering, manufacturing and technology solutions behind the scenes, that have helped and supported the high-performance athletes and sports people in their fantastic achievements and in reaching those pinnacles of success.
Athletes are always striving to do more and want to keep getting better with a lot of discussion around their own particular journey to get to the top of their game. This has chimed with the CI (Continuous Improvement) sessions that CeeD has been running, which are all about a business looking for even the smallest improvement to achieve that really important gain, which makes me think about the whole amount of industry expertise that needs to come together to produce the kit such as advanced textiles, high tech canoe paddles, golf clubs & balls and the same for tennis racquets and balls, running shoes, and so on.
I am sure I would want to be confident of the integrity and quality of the pole vault pole before I thunder down the track to leap to a new world record attempt - well OK, imagining me doing that one is a bit of a stretch! Perhaps I am best to stick to my mediocre golf capability …
The technology challenges of course do not stop at doing these fabulous feats of excellence, they need to be measured and verified and all that data has to be presented to make the spectacle enjoyable to the watching crowds, as well as the athletes themselves. There are also the challenges of data and logistics and how you manage to move people and ticketing, and getting all sorts of stuff to where it needs to be.
Many of you may know that CeeD member NVT was the Official IT Services Provider at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and also provided IT services at several other key sporting events, going back to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. At each of its sporting engagements, NVT has deployed a unique integrated infrastructure monitoring and reporting technology solution called Concepta to help maintain the flow of IT system information and instantly identify where IT support teams were most needed, monitoring key IT systems across all competition and non-competition venues.
Hamish Fraser, NVT’s Group Managing Director, explained one of the main challenges of managing the IT during a multi-sport event:
“By their very nature, these events happen at a fixed point in time, so the technology that enables them needs to be ready, on time, without fail. That takes a lot of forward planning, and although the event start date is fixed, it’s normal for lots of other variables to change, which has an impact on when/how the necessary IT systems are installed on venue. That means our teams also need to be extremely adaptable to changing circumstances, quickly. For example, some venues have some very complicated physical challenges to overcome, whilst other venues are temporary, so that takes a huge amount of consideration and effort, behind the scenes. It truly has to be a Gold medal IT performance!”
A lot of this exceptional work goes on in the background, as it needs to be, but it would be great to expose and highlight at least some of the effort and work from engineering technology and manufacturing companies behind the great spectacle of events such as the Olympics (and not just the obvious and highly innovative brands we do see, but the smaller businesses too).
That could almost be a great advert and enabler to help promote the STEM agenda to our next generation of engineers across all genders and social backgrounds.
If sporting events can help inspire the future generation of sport stars, then I guess we should be able to do likewise for the great stars who put the technology together to help make the Olympics and wider sports what they are today.
All credit to the amazing athletes themselves too of course, who have pushed themselves to extremes and achieved the accolade of a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal. A true inspiration and shows that hard work does pay off.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Paris Olympics and well done to Team GB for all their extraordinary achievements - and maybe a special congratulations to those from Scotland, with a nod to Andy Murray’s lifetime achievements despite not getting a medal this time around, but who had us all reaching for our own nerve-calming tipple during those incredible and highly entertaining doubles matches!