ASOIF - News

<< Back

London Olympics Driving Business for Atos as It Looks to Extend Deal with IOC

Olympics - 30 Jul 2012 -
As the official worldwide IT partner of the International Olympic Committee, Atos is responsible for installing and managing the infrastructure and systems to enable the smooth running of the Olympics and the delivery of real-time results to media around the world.

The London 2012 games, which started with Friday's opening ceremony, will be the sixth Olympics powered by Atos since it became a TOP sponsor (as Schlumberger Sema) in 2001 and the Paris-based company believes that its association with arguably the world’s biggest sporting event has helped it attract new clients in other sectors.

This is, in part, because sport is seen as a vanguard for technology, with developments in this field spreading to other areas of the company in subsequent years.

Asked if the Olympics has directly helped Atos increase its customer base, Patrick Adiba, CEO Iberia, Olympic Games and Major Events for the company, told Sportcal: “Definitely and London has been much more [influential] than any other [Olympics].”

Speaking at the launch of 'Ascent at London 2012', a thought leadership report on sport, last week, Adiba said: “Not only is it [the Olympics] a calling card, it is a way to shorten the sales cycle. In our industry, with a customer that doesn’t know you, it could take a year or two years to develop a relationship."

Adiba said that a potential customer will sense that “If you can do it for the Olympics, you can do it for me tomorrow. That’s the really big benefit.”

Last Friday, Atos announced revenues of €4.366 billion ($5.378 billion) for the first half of 2012, a 76-per-cent increase on the previous year, representing organic growth of 1.4 per cent. Net income was up marginally, from €100 million to €102 million, reflecting staff restructuring and acquisition integration costs.

Thierry Breton, Atos' chairman and chief executive, said: “The first half confirmed what we expect to be a solid year in 2012. We continue to closely monitor the global economic environment, while remaining focused on building a profitable and sustainable growth model. Thanks to the efficient execution of the TOP programme, our operating profitability is in line with the 6.5 per cent objective of the full year.”

London 2012 represents Atos’ biggest Olympic undertaking yet, with responsibilities including an accreditation system for 200,000 athletes, support staff, officials and media and a technology operations centre that will handle 2 million messages, a 30-per-cent increase on the Beijing 2008 games.

The company’s present deal with the IOC runs up to and includes the 2016 Olympics in Rio and it sees no reason why it should not join the seven other TOP sponsors already committed until 2020.

Asked if Atos is keen to extend its deal, Adiba said: “Yes, of course, so after London we will have some discussions and see how far we can take that.”

The association with the Olympics has enabled Atos to develop a reputation as a major partner of sport, and other events it has been involved with include the Asian Games, the Pan American Games, the All-Africa Games and the Universiade, the university games.

In addition to the Olympics, Atos is a worldwide partner of the subsequent Paralympics in London and it will retain an involvement in UK sport as a second-tier sponsor of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

The company has also forged closer links with sport by this year acquiring a 50-per-cent stake in MSL, which specialises in real-time results and information systems at major events.

However, Atos uses its connection with the IOC to develop business in other spheres, with Adiba saying: “Now we really see the full power of the Olympics. I think that it is positive in that we learn to share with our consumers how to make our Olympic project relevant to someone in the banking industry or in the telecoms industry or in the retail industry.”

He added that the London Olympics had also been an opportunity to forge stronger links with UK telecoms giant BT and US networking equipment provider Cisco, which are domestic sponsors of London 2012 and technology partners of Atos for the games, saying: “We had a business relationship before the games, we are developing and learning new things during the games and hope to do something new and bigger [in the future].”

Adiba claimed that the Olympics were a “permanent learning experience” for Atos and that the company has been forced to adapt its methods to accommodate changing trends, such as increased use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

He said: “We learned a lot from the [inaugural 2010] Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. There was not so much television but a lot of social networks. A lot of things we learned are actually now in the Olympics.

“In the Paralympic Games, we are going to test a new media concept - a new media player - that will maybe be in the Olympics later on. All this is nurturing.”

Ahead of the Paralympics, Atos, in its capacity as the worldwide partner of the International Paralympic Committee, has now rolled out new websites for the sports of athletics, powerlifting, shooting and swimming overseen by the governing body.

The IPC said: “By being part of the overall IPC website the aim is that visitors to www.paralympic.org will flow through to the four sports sites and vice versa. The overall strategy is to bring all IPC sports together under one digital hub which users can access from multiple entry points.”

The Ascent report, which was compiled with contributions from the Atos Scientific Community and prominent sports officials such as London 2012 chair Sebastian Coe and IPC chief executive Xavier Gonzalez, predicts what the sport and technology landscape will look like in 2020 and acknowledges the impact that social networks are already having.

It is anticipated that email will be dead in eight years’ time, with all online communication conducted over single interfaces, and that sport will be a major driver of this because of its relatively young, international fanbase and the advanced technology used for multi-channel coverage.

There is also an expectation that, if not by 2020, then shortly after, the world will see the death of the armchair fan as viewers will be able to watch sports action through the eyes of an athlete and even create the experience of actually competing in an event as live coverage and gaming merge.

Fans at venues will also enjoy a heightened experience, such as receiving live information from the event organiser not put over a public network and getting alternative views from a second screen.

Looking beyond 2020, Atos can see a time when sports events can be simulated at other venues around the world using hologram technology.

Gilles Grapinet, senior executive vice president, global functions, Atos, said: “The technology and sport landscape has been changing at an unprecedented speed. Having been involved in every Olympic Games since 2002, our team of business technologists has witnessed this change first-hand. As worldwide IT partner for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, we have the responsibility to think one step ahead and help our clients do the same.”

Sportcal