ADVEN T U RE S I N C O NS U LT I NG
has read the book or seen the movie “Moneyball.” The idea of helping teams pick
players, make trades, analyze strategy and
win more games is what sports geeks get
excited about – the sexy side of sports analytics. Perduco aggressively pursued direct
team consultation and met with a large
number of organizations at both the professional and collegiate levels and across
multiple sports including football, basketball, baseball and hockey. Professional
basketball quickly became the target of interest, and Perduco developed a number
of prototype applications to demonstrate
the benefits of O.R. capabilities to team
management. Scout scheduling optimization, aggregate player evaluation and prediction of player performance are just a few
of the solutions presented to professional
teams. Although these solutions were well
received, Perduco gained little tracti on with
respect to establishing formal consulting
agreements with organizations.
TEAM CONSULTATION
Perduco discovered a number of challenges when pursuing direct team consultation. Teams are very protective of
their data and even more protective of the
questions related to team and player challenges. Even with a willingness to sign
non-disclosures and protect data sources,
teams are hesitant to fully share information
with respect to organizational decisions.
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A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G
Additionally, most teams were interested in
how the capabilities presented were being
used by other teams. The idea being, if no
one else was using the tools, there was no
forcing function for them to adopt new analytical methods. Put another way, teams
are very interested in being “first to be second.” The challenge then became getting
the first team on board, which highlighted
the most critical issue limiting the expansion into sports – relationships. Relationships are the foundational building blocks
required to make any business successful.
Perduco had many strategic relationships
in defense, but building a similar network
of connections in professional sports would
take time to develop. The company continues to pursue team consultation, and in
January of 2013, an NBA Western Conference team began using Perduco’s scout
scheduling optimization tool and is now
seeing great benefits with their use of this
capability.
The second major push into sports
came in the area of business-to-business consulting. The connections are
easier to find, and the relationships are
easier to build. Companies supporting
the sports industry are very interested in
new capabilities and are willing to discuss challenge areas where they see
a need for analytical solutions. New or
advanced capabilities give companies
a competitive advantage in a rapidly
W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G