Innovation is the key to beating your competition. It happens in any industry.

How to change & innovate?

That starts with having smart people that are open to new solutions and free to develop new ideas on how to solve problems or optimize processes.  Sport organizations should not be afraid to hire or take advice from experts with different backgrounds, including other sports, other cultures or other industries.

Diversity of thought is crucial to finding solutions to problems.

The Advantages of Data-Driven Strategies

In the past decade technology has enabled us to collect so much more detailed data and these data have a huge potential value that must be exploited. How?
The answer could be very elaborate, but we will try to keep it short.

• Decision-Making

Numbers are only facts. They are just facts that can support coaches’, transforming feelings in strong beliefs, rigorous evidences. Data analysis improves the ability to take decisions, like choosing the best players to complete your roster or evaluate the most effective formation to face your next opponent.

• Money-Saving

Leveraging data is critical for gaining a competitive edge. Analytics are cost-effective and this helps many clubs that haven’t enormous revenues to identify and discover players with high potential. Villarreal CF, SL Benfica, Ajax are great examples in this field.  

• Time-Saving

Automatizing processes allows to save time without spending hours of non-value-added tasks. The life of a coach or an analyst is a rush and it is a pity to waste time for activities that could be done by a machine in a very effective and accurate way.

• Historical Data Exploration

Keeping historical data enables companies to understand the past, to understand the evolution and to enable forecasting. No one does not make a mistake, but it would a mistake not to try to understand the reasons behind the mistakes. Benchmarks are pivotal when working with data, acting as reference points for comparison and improvement. They offer objective standards against which to measure and evaluate individual or organizational performance.

• Defining Organization Philosophy

It’s a sobering fact that your existing team members won’t remain onboard indefinitely. Statistics within the industry suggest an average turnover rate of 20% per year among coaching and performance specialists. Each departure results in valuable insight departing with them. Nonetheless, establishing and adhering to clear standards enables more cost-effective and safe tracking of performance over time.

Conclusion

If there is one take-away from this post is the value of collaborating with smart people with open minds and clear collective objectives. There is nothing more powerful, or valuable, than getting smart and committed people together and inventing new ways to solve problems or improve performance.
Sport is a competitive industry and we are aware of the pressure clubs, players, coaches, and other professionals are under. It can be risky to take chances on new ideas. But by taking the “right” risks, clubs can find ways to innovate and outperform their competition, even in an unfair game.

Football had been screaming for the old Moneyball story for years. Clubs like Brentford and Midtjylland came about and they became that Moneyball story. Use of statistical analysis for training, scouting and work in the transfer market is trumpeted as a principal factor in propelling Midtjylland from the cusp of bankruptcy to domestic champions for the first time in their history within a solitary season. Director of football Rasmus Ankersen and his team did an amazing job. This was his though at the beginning of 2016: “Brentford and Midtjylland are small clubs with small budgets and that means you’ve got to think differently. If you just do the same as the other team then money becomes the decisive factor and we will lose, so we have got to take a different approach”. His achievements since 2016 are compelling.

The future belongs to those who dare.