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Building a Business Critical Computing enterprise - How Aston Villa achieved Premiership class performance with an IT infrastructure built with Fujitsu Siemens Computers by Jentech Computers Limited.

Netting A Premier Project

THE CUSTOMER:
Aston Villa, the Midlands’ premier football club

THE CHALLENGE:
To build a robust, cost-effective IT infrastructure to support the club’s growing commercial activities and CRM and finance software

THE SOLUTION:
An integrated Business Critical Computing approach featuring PRIMERGY servers, SCENIC PCs and C-Series LIFEBOOK notebook PCs

How Aston Villa Football Club implemented a new IT infrastructure, based on Fujitsu Siemens Computers hardware to equip the club with a robust, cost-effective system to support its growing commercial activities and new CRM and finance software.

The millions of pounds invested by Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich in Chelsea FC may have safeguarded the club financially, but for most of the rest of the Premiership there is no such financial safety net. A modern
football club has to pursue a range of business interests to ensure that it maximises its revenue to maintain financial safety. For Aston Villa, the largest Midlands football club, it has realised the importance of its non-football commercial activities and has seen growth in merchandising, conference, banqueting and catering income that now account for a significant percentage of its turnover.

To develop the potential of its non-football business, in 2003 the club decided to invest in a customer relationship management solution integrated with new accounting software – built on a reliable, highly-available and secure IT infrastructure.

Benjamin signs from West Ham

To oversee the upgrade of its IT infrastructure, Roy Benjamin was transferred in from West Ham United – where he was responsible for updating the club’s IT and telecoms systems – to build a new system to take Aston Villa forward in the 2003/4 season and beyond.

Roy Benjamin, Aston Villa’s IT manager, picks up the story: “Although my IT background is with the City, I got the opportunity to build an IT system from the ground up at West Ham which proved an excellent training ground to the difference between football and the City – football clubs are judged by their performance every week, whereas businesses only have to announce their results once a year! When I was offered the opportunity to develop the IT system at a club of Aston Villa’s size and potential, it was too good to turn down.

Roy began to appraise the existing systems with Jentech, the club’s IT supplier, and found that although its systems had done well to date, if it was to implement an integrated customer relationship management system, further investment would be needed.

Building a level playing field

“Because there was previously no IT manager in place, Aston Villa’s existing IT procurement was done on a ‘replace it when it’s broken’ practice,” continues Roy. “Consequently, there was a wide range of specifications for PCs, laptops and servers that didn’t necessarily relate to a users’ needs. I even found some old PCs being used running Windows 95 with 24MB of RAM – I didn’t even know the OS would run with as little memory as that! One of the first things to do was standardise desktop PCs, laptops and servers across the board.”

Aston Villa’s old accounting solution was 10 years old so wasn’t equipped to scale up to the club’s commercial activities. On the sales and marketing side of the business, Aston Villa’s customer services team wasn’t able to look up a customer history electronically when they telephoned or emailed, and the marketing team didn’t integrate these contacts with its database for direct mail-shots or other promotions. The club decided to implement the Great Plains accounting solution and a CRM system from Accent, requiring an upgrade of its IT infrastructure.

Putting a winning team together

“ The advantages of introducing a CRM solution are clear in terms of enhanced information about your customer base, but it has to be built on a sound infrastructure. When we turned to Jentech, they recommended PRIMERGY Intel-based servers from Fujitsu Siemens Computers. We were happy to go with Fujitsu Siemens Computers as we were already using PRIMERGY systems across the enterprise and have always been impressed by their performance levels and scalability,” explains Roy.

Jentech has installed seven Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMERGY servers – including three to handle new applications - on the main Villa Park site for applications including finance, CRM, email, web- and file & print.

Selecting the right formation

As part of the upgrading of IT infrastructure, Roy Benjamin assessed the desktop PC usage and decided to introduce a standardisation programme to ensure that all users are working to a consistent minimum specification. ‘Standard’ users now have SCENIC desktop PCs with P3 processors and 128 MB RAM using Windows 2000. ‘Power’ users are equipped with higher specification P4s.

“It doesn’t make sense to equip everyone with the same machine as users’ needs do differ to a certain extent,” he says. “However, to have standardisation across desktop PCs does make procurement, installation, maintenance and upgrades simpler and more cost-effective.”

“We have also decided to go with Fujitsu Siemens Computers for our notebook PC needs as the company delivers an excellent level of performance and durability for a low outlay. For example, as part of our recent refresh programme we’ve seen C-Series LIFEBOOK notebooks allocated to chief scout Ian Broomfield, Steve McGreggor in the sports science department and myself. So, the laptops are being used for anything from using spreadsheets to track prospective players to enabling me to dial-up to assess the network performance. Whatever we’re asking our laptops to do, the needs are the same: reliability, performance and portability,” continues Roy.

IT top of the league

In the few months since Roy Benjamin’s appointment, Aston Villa has already seen a number of benefits to its new IT infrastructure that will future-proof its investment and ensure that services are available 24/7.

Roy explains why Fujitsu Siemens Computers are the ideal supplier for the club’s business-critical needs: “We wouldn’t have been able to run the new CRM and finance applications on our old infrastructure, but we also wanted to scale-out with additional servers rather than the additional expense of replacement. A cluster of PRIMERGY servers is ideal for scaling-out and the solution is perfect for our broad range of activities. Furthermore, if we want to add more memory or storage, this is easy to do.

“We have also found that the proliferation of emails that are sent and received has put much more demands on our enterprise systems, which we’re now able to cope with,” he adds. “Working closely with Jentech – which the club has a long association with - means that we’re able to tap into their expertise for advice about enterprise procurement and maintenance.”

According to Roy Benjamin, Aston Villa has already seen less downtime across its IT infrastructure – PCs, laptops, servers and storage, all from Fujitsu Siemens Computers – which means that IT is helping staff to become more efficient, rather than hindering them in doing their jobs.

“Often, you only realise the benefits of IT when it’s taken away,” says Roy. “If a system is running smoothly members of staff almost shouldn’t know it’s there. In the same way that the players and coaching staff are under pressure week in week out, the support services such as IT need to be available around the clock to enable them to do their job – thankfully with Fujitsu Siemens Computers this is made easier rather than harder!

“With both desktop and notebook PCs I’ve been pleased with the quality of build and value for money of our new machines. Even so, having a full three year on-site warranty is another advantage of selecting Fujitsu Siemens Computers as we know that any problems will be quickly dealt with.”

Looking forward to next season

In the future, Roy Benjamin will be looking to extend the Wide Area Network to incorporate the club’s training ground rather than having to use an ISDN connection between the two sites. This will make Aston Villa’s IT infrastructure even more seamless and provide users at the training ground with instant access to applications on the main site.

Roy is also investigating Fujitsu Siemens Computers’ Tablet PC range to enable users such as the coaching staff to write up players performance and coaching results on the move. “I can see a day where all of the coaching staff are using Tablet PCs to design their training routines, plan tactics and play video clips to players – all on the move,” he says.

“As there is more pressure to perform on the pitch, we’ll be looking to work with Fujitsu Siemens Computers and its partner Jentech to build an IT infrastructure that supports the club on all levels: commercially to drive income and build relationships with supporters and sponsors, and on the playing and coaching side to help them get the results that we need on the pitch,” concludes Roy Benjamin.