Context
A platform to organise SAP's global sponsorships.
The project brought sponsorship management, communication and activation requirements together in one digital platform.
The challenge: coordinating sponsorships on a global scale
SAP maintained an international portfolio of sporting and corporate sponsorships, spread across global teams, regions, business units and external partners. Operations relied on spreadsheets, presentations, extranets and documents held in different tools. Finding a programme, locating its brief or sharing activation materials meant searching through multiple sources. The scale of the challenge was tangible: a presentation of the 2014 operation recorded 590 activated programmes across 30 markets, involving 42 rights holders. These figures illustrated the size of the portfolio; they were not results attributed to the new system.
02Turning fragmented processes into a product
At GMR Marketing, the task was to turn management and communication requirements into a single collaborative platform. Work began with an understanding of existing practices, an assessment of user expectations and research into solutions available on the market. As no off-the-shelf solution offered the flexibility required, the project moved towards a bespoke application, including the selection of a technical supplier and planned integration with SAP's corporate authentication system. As Product Owner, Ludovic de La Bédoyère helped develop the proposal and led the alignment of functional requirements, product priorities and the teams involved through to delivery.
03An architecture designed for five user groups
The platform needed to serve GMR administrators, SAP's global sponsorship and marketing team, regional managers, local business units and external partners — each with its own permissions and content. The concept combined an activation map searchable by market, region, category, sport and period with a calendar-based communications planner. The scope included viewing and downloading briefs, group notifications, ambassador requests, feedback and usage reports. The interface was conceived as a responsive HTML5 web application, rather than a conventional corporate website.
04From prototype to delivery
Development progressed through personas, usage scenarios, functional specifications, clickable wireframes and direction of interface production. The project dossier records more than 150 design templates intended for developers and a development cycle of approximately ten months. GMR coordinated the build with the selected technology partner, TechTier, while product work remained focused on the day-to-day needs of international teams. The delivery was an operational tool dedicated to finding, distributing and organising sponsorship information, rather than simply a digital presentation of the brand's portfolio.
