Using technology to enable Team Dimension Data to succeed
BlogTechnology as a catalyst for success
Businesses in every industry are figuring out how to use technology to drive their desired business outcomes. The digital age provides opportunities for better customer, employee and supplier experiences, and new and emerging technologies are at the core of this change.
The business of sport is no exception.
As the title partner of Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka, we have tasked ourselves with developing technology solutions that act as a catalyst for success, helping everyone from management to the riders make the most of technology to gain a competitive edge. In developing digital solutions for the Team over the last two years, we’ve focused on three key areas: operations, individual performance, and team strategy.
Operations
Overseeing logistics for a global team
Managing the logistics of any sports team competing internationally is hard enough. When your team is hardly ever in the same place at the same time, the job is that much more difficult.
The operations app we developed helps the operations and logistics team keep track of, deliver and store over 390 core assets, from socks and shoes to bikes and wheels. I’m pleased to say we haven’t lost a bike, or had the wrong bike at an event, since implementing this solution.
Keeping track of valuable team assets is made easier by the operations app, developed for Team Dimension Data.
Individual performance
Monitoring health and wellness
Obviously, the riders are central to the team’s success, and their health and wellbeing are paramount. When you have 27 individuals competing in events around the world, keeping track of how they’re doing physical and mentally can be a challenge.
We worked with the coaching staff and medical team, as well as the riders themselves, to develop a mobile application that alerts doctors and coaches to any health or wellness issues that may affect performance, and step in to help.
It can also alert them to cases that need urgent intervention, such as when Bernie Eisel started experiencing headaches after a crash in April 2018. The medical team immediately sent Bernie for an MRI and he underwent emergency surgery to remove a brain haemorrhage. We’re happy to report he received excellent care and is recovering well!
The health and wellness app helps Team Dimension Data coaches and medical practitioners monitor the overall well-being of individual riders.
Making strategic decisions on the go
At the Tour de France, our data tracking and analytics technology puts essential information in the hands of the team’s coaches and directeurs sportifs . They can view real-time data on our riders as well as where the other riders are, and where the gaps are.
Having access to reliable information helps them to make tactical decisions and adapt strategies during the race, so they can achieve the best results without needing a significant number of resources on the road.
Managing performance goals
We are also now developing a business intelligence solution that will allow the directeurs sportifs to capture information on an individual rider’s performance after each race on a mobile device. This will assist with setting and achieving future individual goals.
In the past, this process was sporadic, distributed and not captured in real-time. Our solution aims to make it easier to view and search for information, overlay additional data sets, and support a streamlined decision making and planning process.
Team strategies
Devising the optimal race programme
While individual performance is obviously critical to success, pro cycling is ultimately a team sport. Management therefore has to know which riders are best suited to certain types of races, and how to make the most of each rider’s unique talents and abilities to develop a winning formula for the team.
The Union Cycliste International (UCI) allocates points for results achieved in different races on the UCI WorldTour (the Tour de France offers the highest number of points). Devising a strategy that will allocate the right riders to each race analysing complicated variables and matching the team strategy and timetable in order to achieve the best results.
We are using our expertise in machine learning and predictive data analytics to help Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka achieve its target of earning enough points to finish as high up the WorldTour league table as possible. We’ve developed a solution that combines rider profiles, race result predictions, race and stage types, and point allocations to help the management team identify the optimal race programme for the year and maximise the potential of the team.
Machine learning and predictive analytics will help team management develop a race programme that maximises the potential of the team.
