Deploying a platform to digitalise management

Business and sports processes for Widzew Łódź football club
Summary
On the one hand, there’s the pressure to achieve and maintain sporting and media results. On the other, there are the realities of modern-day management, including handling players’ contracts, training analyses, licensing and EU requirements, invoices, orders, more contracts... In answer to the club’s needs, MakoLab developed and deployed a comprehensive platform to digitalise the club’s administrative, management and sports processes. The solution is grounded in Alfresco enterprise content management (ECM) and Camunda business process management (BPM) technologies.
Client
Industry
Professional sport / football club management
Service
A platform to digitalise management, business and sports processes
Deliverables
Business consultancy; Business process and notation (BPMN) analysis; Deployment of ECM and BPM systems; Integration the club’s existing Comarch Optima tools
Widzew Łódź is one of the most iconic sports brands in Poland, often called “the Polish club team of all time.” From local roots, it grew into a nationally recognized organization with international achievements, a strong fan base, and significant marketing value.

Details

The Client

Widzew Łódź is one of the most iconic sports brands in Poland, often called “the Polish club team of all time.” From local roots, it grew into a nationally recognized organization with international achievements, a strong fan base, and significant marketing value.

The challenge

Widzew Łódź operates within the dynamic worlds of sports and business. The club needed to streamline its operational processes. Traditional, paper-based document management was causing delays, while the lack of a centralised system was a hinderance to interdepartmental collaboration.

The club set out a clear goal; the key administrative and sports processes were to be completely transformed into state-of-the-art, automated processes.

The chief issues we faced were:

  • the manual systems for processing invoices, contracts and orders;
  • the lack of automated document circulation;
  • poor flexibility in terms of adapting to regulatory changes;
  • the necessity of implementing solutions that comply with EU project requirements.
The solution

To begin with, the MakoLab team ran a series of workshops with the club’s key units, in other words, the finance, administrative and sports departments.
Together, we used BPMN to map processes and a detailed business needs analysis was carried out.

And the outcome? A clear, realistic software requirements specification (SRS) that became the foundation of the transformation.

  • SRS
  • Processes mapped using BPMN
  • Data models for crucial registers
  • Access permissions policy

Next, a platform was implemented. It was grounded in:

  • Alfresco: ECM, for document management;
  • Camunda: BPM, for automated business processes;
  • integration with Comarch Optima, for accountancy processes.
Key results and innovations
  • Analytical workshops in the fields of sport and administration
  • The preparation of technical and business documentation in compliance with EU project requirements 
  • The introduction of remote working and electronic document circulation
  • Automated contract renewal notifications; Fully digitalised document circulation for invoices, contracts and project documentation
  • Automated decision-making processes.

We also brought the project in 42% more quickly than scheduled, with completion after 7 months, rather than 12.

Conclusion

The project we completed for Widzew Łódź confirmed that MakoLab effectively merges business and technological know-how to deliver solutions that genuinely streamline an organisation’s operations. The digitalised platform we developed and deployed not only optimised the club’s processes, but also enhanced its competitiveness on the sports market.

A modern company needs modern solutions. In this case, the digitalisation of our business processes was vital. Our collaboration with MakoLab meant that we were able to optimise them. Thanks to the deployment of the digital platform, we gained flexibility, efficacy and efficiency in managing the club.
Katarzyna Bednar, Operations Director, Widzew Łódź
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