San Francisco 49ers: Partnering with SAP to Win on the Field and Off

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1 San Francisco 49ers: Partnering with SAP to Win on the Field and Off The San Francisco 49ers football team, among the foremost franchises in sports, attributes much of its success to a partnership with SAP. SAP software touches everything the team does, from managing employees to optimizing the fan experience.

2 Organization San Francisco 49ers Headquarters Santa Clara, California Industry Sports and entertainment Products and Services Professional football Employees 1,200+ Web Site BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION Objectives Be the best team in the National Football League both on and off the field Grow the organization from 125 full-time and part-time employees to more than 1,200 in one off-season Optimize the fan experience Partnered with SAP to address challenges using the best in technology Adopted solutions from SuccessFactors, an SAP company, for all human capital management needs Used the SAP Jam social software platform to streamline game-day communications and operations Benefits Boosted efficiency through self-service Ran the business at a significant decrease from prior year s cost Read more Nearly 10x Employee growth over a single off-season 70,000 Fans per game whose behavior is known Top 50 Ranking in the Bay Area s best places to work Without SAP I don t think we could have built our spectacular new football stadium. In fact, we wouldn t be where we are in many ways. We couldn t be prouder of our relationship. Al Guido, Chief Operating Officer, San Francisco 49ers 2 / 6

3 Technology, a necessity for being first-class in sports The San Francisco 49ers football franchise is one of the premier organizations in all of sports. The 49ers have consistently been among the top teams in the National Football League for the last several decades. Six times they have gone to the Super Bowl and five of those times returned with championship rings to show for their efforts. Recently the team built a spectacular new stadium in nearby Santa Clara, California. With this new venue came responsibility for running a lot more than the 10 football games a year it hosted in the past. Levi s Stadium is also the site for many other kinds of sporting events plus concerts, a museum, catered events, retail operations, and much more. Suddenly the team s staffing needs grew from 125 full-time and part-time employees to more than 1,200. All we had in the past were our old paper-based methods for signing people up, processes that took hours we didn t have, says Al Guido, chief operating officer for the 49ers. We knew there s no way to manage that kind of overnight growth without technology, the kind of technology you can only get from a worldclass partner. The hiring splurge was only the most immediate need that the 49ers had for a technology partner. The team had pledged to provide its fans with absolutely the best experience in live sports, and that meant more than winning on the field. The team wanted to be able to tell each individual fan what time to leave home to get to the game on time, what route to take to minimize traffic, where to find parking closest to the stadium, and which entrance gate to use. If a fan had an autographed jersey on order, the 49ers wanted to know the best time to deliver it to the fan s seat. 3 / 6

4 SAP: Everything the 49ers needed in a technology partner The 49ers knew they were asking a lot of a technology partner, and that is what led them to SAP. The technology at SAP touches every part of our team, whether it s our business, our football operations, our HR, or our business analytics, explains Guido. We wanted the best, and that s why we went with SAP, echoes Sean Kundu, vice president of new ventures for the 49ers. SAP SuccessFactors solutions, top to bottom, were just what we needed for recruiting and onboarding new employees, helping them through their entire employee lifecycle, and providing ways to make their jobs easier. The team implemented a group of SAP SuccessFactors solutions simultaneously in just three months, which was possible only because they reside in the cloud. SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting solutions simplify operations for applicants and managers alike with all its self-service, paperless functionality. SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central puts all key information about employees at managers fingertips wherever they may be. SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals helps the 49ers develop its employees in ways that are configurable to each individual. The 49ers also found the ideal tool for streamlining communication among the on-site employees responsible for optimizing the fan experience: SAP Jam. Let s say there s a problem at one of our entrances, says Guido. That fact can be instantly broadcast to our entire stadium crew so they know to steer people to alternative entrances instead. 4 / 6

5 BI means better fan experiences and greater profits The 49ers use business intelligence (BI) software from SAP to better understand fans and their patterns of behavior, thereby driving better decisions. For example, the team has learned what their fans buy, where and when they buy it, and why they buy it. This intelligence allows the team to cater to individual needs and desires, leading to better fan experiences while boosting profits. Knowing the customer also allows the organization to guide fans along the shortest route from their homes to the stadium and steer them to the parking lot closest to their seats. Whether it is making sure the right article of clothing is available for sale near their seats or telling them which types of restrooms nearby are not busy, the 49ers get the information they need to satisfy customers from these analytics. What has changed within our organization is we actually know who our customers are, says Guido. It s amazing. We sell 70,000 seats for every single game. We only knew 19,000 of those people two years ago. Now we know every one of those 70,000 people who come into the building. We know everybody that they transfer their tickets to. We would not be able to do any of that without the data analytics that come from the breadth of tools in SAP software. HR tools from SAP allow us to create a better culture for employees and fans. That is one of the most important things we do. Al Guido, Chief Operating Officer, San Francisco 49ers 5 / 6

6 San Francisco 49ers Relying on SAP for a view of the future Next up for implementation is the SAP SuccessFactors Learning solution, which the 49ers will use to speed up employee training. We re really excited that we ll be able to create training materials anywhere and anytime, and push them out according to our schedule, says Kundu. We expect huge gains in efficiency. The 49ers know that a competitive edge can be a fleeting thing, and therefore they rely on their partnership with SAP not just for today s challenges but for tomorrow s as well. Without SAP as a partner it would be hard to see what the future of data is, what the future of HR is, or what the future of analytics is, says Guido. It would be hard not just to see these things but to know how to apply them in a sports business. You need a really powerful partner, and SAP, in my opinion, is that partner. Studio SAP 39095enUS (15/10) 6 / 6

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