Innovation is a term used frequently within the sports industry, in board rooms, strategic plans, and business KPIs. The scarcity of literature on the topic means a proper framing of the lexicon around innovation is paramount to make it a discipline and an approach within the sports industry. To lean on the OECD’s definition of innovation, as outlined in the Oslo Manual, innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations.
As the discipline of innovation matures in the coming years within the sports industry, we were excited to spend time with the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee of the Olympic & Paralympic Games to talk about their innovation strategy. During our weekly online Meetup on June 4 entitled Olympic Innovation: Co-Creating Solutions with Partners, we had the pleasure of hosting Omar El Zayat, Head of Innovation Integration at Paris 2024.
Read on to see how Paris 2024 has integrated innovation into its vision, how they foster an innovation culture within the organization, how they work with a vast ecosystem, and how they approach the co-creation of solutions with partners. For a full recording of the video, please visit here.
Innovation within Paris 2024
Having an innovation department within an organization is something new within an Olympic organizing committee. While it is the first to create an institutional structure for innovation within an OCOG, their intention is that Olympic organizations follow their steps.
¨In the Olympic movement, it’s very new to have an innovation department, but we do not want this to be a 1-time thing, we want this trend to continue. We are the starting point and hopefully, we can all go from here.¨
Innovation is part of the vision of Paris 2024, which needs to be applied to many business units. It is a way to stay relevant as a business and to follow and discover new trends in and outside of the industry.
¨For us, innovation is a methodology that should be implemented in every single business unit to solve problems by applying new concepts.¨ – Omar El Zayat
Fostering an innovation culture within an organization
When an organization wants to implement innovation, a shift in culture is critical within the entire workforce, extending from the leadership to the trainees. Some initiatives taken by Paris 2024 in this context are to:
- Have a representative in each business unit that is the link with the innovation team (they’re aptly called “Explorers”)
- Host monthly events, open to all employees, to bring inspiring actors, such as startups, academics, thought leaders to share their stories
- Work closely with different firms to generate trend reports on many different topics to stay up to date
- Conduct monthly meetings with the ecosystem to share best practices, with the aim of matchmaking between needs surfaced by the “Explorers” and the ecosystem
¨Fostering a culture of innovation within Paris 2024 was very easy as everyone is very open to doing things differently. But one has to understand that innovation is not changing just for the sake of it. It must be applied in order to stay relevant, to adapt and to deliver excellence.¨ – Omar El Zayat
Working with the ecosystem
During the preparation and the delivery of the biggest sporting event, the Olympic Games, there are many stakeholders involved from public institutions to global and local partners, startups, tech companies, and many different types of organizations. During this phase, Paris 2024 is monitoring, researching, and having many conversations with the ecosystem to see what solutions are out there that can be applied at the Olympic Games.
¨For us it is very important to work with our ecosystem and not only to showcase the different organizations but to find a valuable solution that can be applied to deliver the Olympic Games.¨ – Omar El Zayat
Up to now, only 3% of the total purchases that will be made by Paris 2024 in the course of preparing for and delivering the Olympic & Paralympic Games were completed. This means that 97% of the total amount remains, and an encouraging figure was that 50% of all the public tenders they have launched so far have been won by SMEs.
Are you a startup, tech company, big corporation, or another type of organization that is looking to work with an Olympic organization? Are you an Olympic organization looking to generate new ways of collaboration in a rapidly changing landscape? An innovation strategy could help you achieve this. Get in touch with our teammate Javier at javier@n3xtsports.com to find out more about some of our turnkey innovation strategy projects.
If you were not able to make it to our online session, you can watch it here, also we would like to invite you to subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook to stay up to date with any N3XT Sports news.