FC Bayern has a new platinum partner. At a press conference on Tuesday at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany’s biggest club announced a new agreement with SAP SE, Europe’s biggest software manufacturer by turnover. The cooperation between FCB and the Walldorf-based, DAX-listed corporation has been agreed for an initial three-year term.
“I would like to welcome SAP very warmly to FC Bayern and thank the company for its involvement and trust. We’re delighted with this important partnership,” commented Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. FCB board director Andreas Jung also welcomed the new member of the FCB family: “FC Bayern and SAP are both successful, globally renowned brands, whose values and objectives fit well together. We can with justified confidence say it is the coming together of two champions.”
The partnership aims for sporting and commercial success through the use of innovative technologies, with the goal of simplifying and efficiently structuring a host of business procedures at FC Bayern. “We’re convinced that SAP is the optimal partner and offers the optimal products for this,” Rummenigge said. The chairman specifically mentioned “the software landscape, particularly the Hybris product, a platform for a future-oriented CRM system”.
Furthermore SAP software will also be deployed in the sporting environment. The market leader will supply the nation’s biggest club with extensive data for performance diagnostics. Bayern coach Pep Guardiola will receive detailed information regarding his players’ current performance levels. “This provides modern analytical procedures to minimise the risk of injury,” Rummenigge explained. Monitoring specific movement patterns can allow early and preventative intervention in training.
SAP’s HANA product is also ideal for match analysis. “This is a new development in recent years allowing billions of data sets to be processed in seconds. It opens up entirely new opportunities that simply didn’t exist before,” explained SAP SE director Gerhard Oswald. “In the future we expect to be able to respond even better to the players’ individual strengths and weaknesses and raise overall performance,” Rummenigge added.
FC Bayern has had “two or three exceptionally successful seasons”, continued the chairman, “with exceptional commercial growth. Our goal is to secure a sustainable place among the international elite over the long term, both financially and in footballing terms. We therefore need state-of-the-art technology both on and off the pitch.”
It has become essential to recognise the demands and requirements of “the ever-growing digital world,” continued Rummenigge. The new partnership promises many benefits for the club’s fans. “We are always concerned to respond to our fans’ many requests and requirements in the best possible way. In the future we will certainly have the possibility to approach our supporters in an even more appropriate and goal-oriented way,” commented Jung. “SAP will help us in all these areas.”
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