Founded in 1863, the Football Association Commonly Known As the FA Is the Country S Governing

Customer Solution Case Study

Sports Organisation Streamlines Business with Digital Collaboration Platform

Overview “With SharePoint Server 2010, we have increased efficiency Country or Region: United Kingdom by reducing the time spent exchanging or locating Industry: Sports information. That enables us to handle our role quickly, Customer Profile The Football Association has overseen effectively, and confidently.” British football since its founding in 1863. Mark Ives, Disciplinary Manager, The Football Association The association has its headquarters at Wembley Stadium in London and has 43 affiliated county associations across the The Football Association (The FA) oversees the game of football country. in England. In 2009, The FA moved its headquarters into the Business Situation newly rebuilt national stadium, to merge with the Wembley After combining its two main business units, The Football Association needed Stadium organisation. This required integrating two existing IT the right communication and groups that were using different versions of Microsoft Office collaboration platform to meet needs of its business stakeholders, employees, and SharePoint Server. Rather than migrate all systems to one of the regional offices. two versions, The FA chose to move to Microsoft SharePoint

Solution Server 2010. As a first step, The FA launched an initial The Football Association implemented an deployment with the help of Microsoft Gold Certified Partner initial deployment of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 that provides Concentra. The deployment has shown that SharePoint Server improved information sharing and 2010 can improve communication and collaboration within the access, while reducing the organisation’s postal spending. organisation. By moving to an electronic solution, The FA is also reducing its reliance on postal mail and courier services by 75 Benefits Increased communication and percent, which will save the organisation tens of thousands of collaboration pounds a year. Improved process efficiency Better work tools Cost savings Situation technology of the association with those Founded in 1863, The Football Association involved in running the venue. —commonly known as The FA—is the Prior to the move, The FA used Microsoft country’s governing body for the game, Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 at its and is the world’s oldest national governing Soho Square offices, while the Wembley body for the sport. The FA not only Stadium staff used Microsoft Office promotes the playing of football, it also SharePoint Server 2007. The FA needed to establishes the rules of the game, sanctions create an integrated IT strategy that could leagues and competitions, and oversees the support the needs of both sides of the administration of the sport’s referees and organisation as well as the regional offices. disciplinary system. Nearly seven million “Although technology has been an people in England play some form of important part of our organisation, we still football every month, and 125,000 FA- used a number of old-fashioned, paper- affiliated teams play in more than 1,700 based processes,” says Saty Gahir, football leagues. Enterprise Content Manager for The FA. “This slowed us down and created In addition to its centralised staff and inefficiencies and unnecessary costs for offices, The FA also has numerous locations both the main organisation and the around the United Kingdom, including affiliated clubs. We wanted to find better county and regional offices. Although the ways to communicate and collaborate so county offices run as separate entities, the we can further our goal of promoting and IT infrastructure for the entire organisation overseeing football in the United is centralised into one unit so that security, Kingdom.” firewalls, applications, and email can be centrally administered. The FA maintains The FA also saw this transition as an two separate intranets—one for the core opportunity to modernise the work business divisions and another for the environment of employees who are used to county offices and an extranet for working a variety of sophisticated web-based with business partners. Each of the resources away from the job. “They use networks has different requirements for sites like Facebook and LinkedIn at home, security, access, and functionality, but and their kids have access to those managing them centrally ensures a level of resources at schools and colleges,” says standardisation that simplifies Gahir. “We want those same tools to be management. available at work. We want our employees to feel that we are keeping up with the The new Wembley Stadium, opened in times and giving them the tools they need 2007 in northwest London, is England’s to work more productively and efficiently.” national stadium for football, and it is the second-largest stadium in Europe, with a Solution capacity of 90,000 people. The stadium is The IT group at The FA initially considered owned by Wembley National Stadium migrating the Office SharePoint Portal Limited, a subsidiary of The FA. In 2009, The Server 2003 deployment to Office FA moved its operational headquarters SharePoint Server 2007, but it also looked from Soho Square to Wembley Stadium, ahead to the possibilities of Microsoft which required integrating the staff and SharePoint Server 2010. “We felt that SharePoint Server 2010 would offer the

26 features that people have got used to using intense scrutiny from the clubs, spectators, in other applications and on other websites, and the media, so it is important that those like tag clouds for searching document decisions are made as promptly and metadata,” says Gahir. “So we made a transparently as possible. business decision to hold off on migration and wait for SharePoint Server 2010.” In the past, the work of the disciplinary team was complicated by the difficulties Requirements and Planning inherent in managing and exchanging all of As a first step in its SharePoint Server 2010 the necessary information—including migration plans, The FA looked for a referees’ reports, challenge submissions, technology partner to assist with the and video clips of incidents—in a timely project. Because The FA had a four-year manner. The team relied on materials being relationship with Microsoft Gold Certified delivered by post or courier, which delayed Partner Concentra, the London-based the process and also resulted in significant consultancy was an ideal candidate. “The costs. “It’s important to us to make FA came to us with two main decisions and correct mistakes as quickly requirements,” says Paul Graville, Sales and efficiently as possible,” says Mark Ives, Director at Concentra. “They wanted to Disciplinary Manager for The FA. “We had integrate the operations of their two already implemented a fast track system to businesses, and they wanted to use speed up the resolution of disciplinary SharePoint technology to form part of their issues, but we knew we could make the digital media and collaboration strategy. process even better with SharePoint Server The timing was perfect to take advantage 2010.” of SharePoint Server 2010.” The Initial Deployment Concentra invited representatives of The FA The FA chose three clubs—one from the and Wembley Stadium to a SharePoint Premier League, one from the Football seminar and also presented a personal League, and one from the Conference demo to introduce the features in the League—to be part of the initial rollout. SharePoint 2010 technology. After The FA Beginning in March, 2010, engineers at decided to move to SharePoint Server Concentra spent two weeks developing a 2010, Concentra helped it choose the proof-of-concept for the deployment, appropriate features for the business and followed by a month onsite at The FA plan an initial deployment that focused on expanding the implementation using agile the Discipline Department of The FA. The development processes. The new system initial deployment was designed to explore includes webpages that each individual some of the new features of the product club can use to communicate and share and prove the business case for moving information with the disciplinary team, and forward with a wider rollout. a key feature is integration with the Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in for The Discipline Department consists of five streaming video. “A disciplinary case may full-time employees plus a number of have multiple associated video clips which volunteers. Among other things, the team can each be a few minutes long,” explains is responsible for managing clubs’ Gahir. “In the past, our users had to challenges to on-field and off-field download an entire file to view it. For users disciplinary actions, including player at remote locations around the U.K. who suspensions. The team’s decisions face may not have great broadband access, this

36 could be time-consuming. But with around the country, and our existing Silverlight, you can stream the information, system didn’t have a user-friendly way for and that’s a big benefit for us and for the checking documents in and out,” says clubs. It has really been working well.” Gahir. “As part of this project we’ve tested co-authoring of Microsoft Office Excel Concentra and The FA designed the documents to streamline collaboration, and SharePoint Server 2010 solution to make it we’ve shown that it works. Now we’ll easier for users to share and access extend testing to the rest of the Microsoft information. “SharePoint Server 2010 allows Office suite.” us to create document sets where we can store all of the files concerning a particular The FA has been very pleased with the incident in a single place,” says Gahir. “It results of the initial deployment. “The pilot also facilitates the two-way exchange of project was part of the business case to information between clubs and the move to SharePoint Server 2010 and disciplinary team—they now have a place Microsoft Office 2010, and we’ve proved where they can easily drop all their everything we wanted to prove,” explains documents, images, and other content. And Gahir. “People are using the software to with FAST Search and enterprise metadata work smarter and quicker, it delivers great management, we can make it much easier strategic value to business, and we have for all users to find what they’re looking opened up new possibilities for revenue for.” generation. We’ll also use the digital media and social computing possibilities to build Because disciplinary actions can be a communities and strengthen our sensitive subject, it is important to The FA relationship with the clubs and with the that all information pertaining to cases can fans. Our goal is to have a complete be stored and accessed in a secure manner deployment by the end of 2010.” that ensures that files and videos are only seen by authorised personnel. “Security is a Benefits huge requirement for us,” says Gahir. “And The FA has used its initial deployment in we’ve found that the forms-based the disciplinary department to investigate authentication in SharePoint Server 2010 the ways in which it can use SharePoint and integration with the Active Directory Server 2010 to increase communication and Federation Service makes it easy for us to collaboration, improve process efficiency, create secure areas that can only be reduce costs, and provide employees with accessed by particular people. We can also better technological tools. The results so far offer single sign-on to make it seamless for make it clear that the new solution can users to move between sites without have tremendous benefits across the repeatedly having to log on.” organisation.

The FA also wanted to test the ways that Increased Communication and integration between SharePoint Server Collaboration 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010 can further The FA needs to work easily with clubs and improve collaboration across the local football associations across the organisation. A key feature has been the country. In the past, The FA often relied on simultaneous co-authoring capabilities hard-copy mailings to communicate with provided by the two applications working all of these groups, but its new digital together. “We have employees based all

46 collaboration platform based on SharePoint By upgrading its communication and Server 2010 provides new channels for collaboration platform, the FA is giving its official communications through security- employees a modern, robust set of enhanced portal sites. This will make it technology tools so they can better do easier to ensure that all users have the their jobs. “SharePoint Server 2010 is a information they need. “As an example, if markedly different application from the we have a new campaign for grassroots 2003 and 2007 versions,” says Gahir. “With football, we need to make sure that the all the new features and the integration same information—messaging, posters, with Microsoft Office, it gives people the logos, and other materials—gets to all of functionality they need to work more the clubs,” explains Gahir. “Now we can use productively and efficiently no matter SharePoint Server 2010 to build a where they are located. There is much more centralised information repository where robust and dynamic search functionality, our users can always go for access to all the for example, with thumbnails, tag clouds, latest information.” and a better navigational hierarchy. It makes finding a particular document much In addition to pushing out information to easier.” clubs, the FA can now receive information from the clubs more easily as well. “As part Significant Cost Savings of the pilot deployment, we’ve allowed the By moving from paper-based processes to clubs to both view and upload an electronic system, The FA is not only information,” says Gahir. “We’ve never speeding up its processes, it is dramatically before had a system where they could cutting costs for both the main upload electronic files as well. This organisation and the clubs. “We pay a huge improved two-way communication will amount of money in postal and courier definitely enhance our collaboration with costs every year, as do the clubs,” says Ives. the clubs.” “We will be able to dispense with about 75 percent of those costs, which will save us Improved Process Efficiency tens of thousands of pounds a year. And As The FA improves communications with the disciplinary group is just one function its clubs and partners, it is streamlining its of our business, so the savings will be business processes as well. For the greater as we roll out SharePoint Server Discipline Department, this means that 2010 functionality to more of the decisions can be made more quickly and organisation. Getting rid of all that paper accurately, and this is important for a group will also reduce our environmental impact, whose work is so closely scrutinised by the which is a great side benefit.” press and by fans of the game. “Our role is to uphold the integrity of the game, and I “In this day and age, relying on the postal want to make sure we have all the tools system to send out letters seems very available to make that happen,” says Ives. outdated,” adds Gahir. “We can use “With SharePoint Server 2010, we have technology for virtually all communications increased efficiency by reducing the time with the clubs—from email to video spent exchanging or locating information. conferencing—and that’s where I want to That enables us to perform our role quickly, move to. I’m extremely confident that this effectively, and confidently.” will be the right move, not only for The Football Association, but for the whole Better Work Tools game.”

56 Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise and the Internet.

For more information about Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, go to: www.microsoft.com/sharepoint

Microsoft Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 gives your people powerful, timesaving tools to do their best work from more places. With new capabilities and insightful updates to Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook, Office 2010 offers the complete package—with familiar, intuitive tools. Now you can express ideas, solve problems, connect with people, and create amazing results—in the office, at home, or on the go.

For more information about Microsoft Office, go to: www.office.com