Eclispe helps the NRL to stay in-front

The National Rugby was formed in 1998 under a partnership arrangement between the Australian Rugby League and News Ltd to administer the National Competition.

A ‘Partnership Executive Committee’, consisting of three representatives from News Ltd and three from the ARL, administers the agreement between the ARL and News Ltd and decides major financial issues.

Approximately 35 staff members are employed at NRL’s headquarters in Sydney in seven different departments — CEO’s Office, Football Operations, Strategy & Special Projects, Salary Cap and Registration, as well as Media, Marketing, and Finance.

The NRL markets the Telstra Premiership on behalf of the clubs, and organises the competition draw, finals matches and Grand Final. In association with the ARL, the NRL staff also promotes the representative matches, World Sevens and Australian internationals. It also provides referees for the matches and ensures judiciary procedures are in place.

Ensuring clubs get consistent information is the NRL’s job and it needs to take into account the different infrastructure the various clubs have in order to implement software that will be scalable across the 16 teams.

In order for the NRL to keep a handle on the clubs’ membership and fan base, it turned to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s consulting arm, Eclipse, to undertake a review of all of its clubs’ membership systems and capabilities.

It undertook a stringent selection process, reviewing proposals from 16 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) vendors, before deciding on the combination of StayinFront’s CRM Web product plus StayinFront Analytics and StayinFront Marketing Centre to strengthen its customer relationships and improve its ability to manage and market rugby league games and merchandise.

The NRL’s focus has been on a system that could provide a whole-of-League solution so that not only the activities of the NRL itself can be enhanced, but it can also make available a fully functional CRM system to the clubs and possibly other Rugby League bodies.

Managing good relations
Shane Mattiske, director of Strategy & Special Projects at the NRL said the League sees CRM as an important growth area, as it deals with increased membership numbers and ticket sales and potentially other sources of revenue such as merchandise sales.

“Our clubs have always focused on the database of fans, and across the teams within the NRL there are a wide variety of systems,” said Mattiske. “We have always wanted to put in place a system that is consistent between the clubs and the League.”

With a focus on fans, sports such as the NRL need to be able to have
a better knowledge of their fans to be able to respond to their needs.
Mattiske said the League wanted a system that was web-based and accessible to all of the clubs involved in the NRL.
“We wanted a system that had data protection capabilities and it also needed to have strong marketing capabilities and the ability to expand across other league bodies and be able to integrate through external league partners such as Ticketek,” he said.

According to Mattiske, the StayinFront system centralised membership databases, giving consistency across the teams involved in the game and the League. This will allow improvement in information flow and getting accurate and timely information tailored to the clubs’ needs.

Creating the right environment
According to Anthony Chubb, senior analyst of Eclipse, the eBusiness and web development subsidiary of professional services arm of Deloitte, Eclipse assisted the NRL in creating a CRM strategy and implementing the StayinFront solution.

“We’ve been working with the NRL for the past two years,” he said. This resulted in a recommendation to undergo the formal selection of a CRM system provider that could support a game-wide approach.”
Chubb said the StayinFront system was used because it had the ability to provide functionality via a web application.

“This was mandatory given the dispersed locations of club users,” he said.
The software combination consisted of StayinFront CRM Web which is designed to provide a single CRM platform that can manage and integrate all points of customer interaction including sales, marketing, customer support applications and the web.

What does the software do?
StayinFront’s CRM Web is a highly configurable, cost-effective, enterprise-wide solution. The Object-Oriented data models utilised in StayinFront CRM Web allow an exact fit CRM system to be configured for use with an existing business structure without costly and time-consuming programming code. This was implemented with StayinFront Analytics, which is specifically designed for non-technical users. The NRL also chose to add in the StayinFront Marketing Centre module.

The technology provides the ability to create, execute, manage and track marketing campaigns within the CRM system.

Overcoming challenges
Chubb said the key challenge throughout the project has been ensuring the NRL clubs were constantly engaged and supportive of the project and willing to get involved.

“Rugby league fans are usually fans of their team and therefore have the strongest relationship with the club,” he said.
Chubb believes it’s crucial that club staff were on board and had a shared vision of deepening relationships with their customers — both fans and corporate partners.

“Club staff have been valuable contributors to the project, despite the fact that they have significant day-to-day workload to processing and fulfilling memberships, corporate, packages and other interactions,” he said.

It’s all about the marketing
StayinFront Marketing Centre provides organisations with a tool that manages all phases of corporate marketing campaigns or events. From the initial phases of targeting prospects or attendees through monitoring campaign ROI and lead response rates, StayinFront Marketing Centre allows the focus to remain on the campaign itself rather than the complexity of campaign logistics.

“Our fans and the game will both benefit through the implementation of the CRM. Fans will receive more focused and relevant information and special offers, whilst the NRL can learn more about what our fans like and reduce the instances of fans receiving the same information from two or three sources,” said Mattiske.

The first phase of the implementation will see the NRL launch the new CRM system to five clubs including Wests Tigers, Titans, Warriors, Raiders and Rabbitohs.

“Basically we have taken a phased approach because we want to complete the customisation of the system. For effective reasons we want to give clubs the benefit of the system complete with a customised standard,” said Mattiske.

Web functionality removed all those types of issues and allows for consistency at different levels of infrastructure within the clubs.
Mattiske said the NRL doesn’t have a massive team supporting the rollout, but it does have Eclipse’s resources supporting it.

It ain’t over yet
Eclipse has also commenced assisting the NRL in planning and delivering an integrated direct marketing program throughout the season, working with clubs and utilising StayinFront’s Marketing functionality, Mattiske said.

“The challenge for us now is to have the appropriate tools we need to plan marketing campaigns to utilise the CRM and take full advantage of the investment we have made,” said Mattiske.

“From our point of view other than having an adequate hosting environment there will be no need for the clubs to upgrade their hardware,” said Mattiske.
The League has so far had a positive response from the clubs, who have recognised the advantages, he said.