Sports Technology & Communications News from Around the World

England Hockey had a problem. The organization that serves as the national governing body for hockey in England needed a way to better consolidate information about its services, functions and impact so that it could work to get in better funding sources. As England Hockey is a not-for-profit agency, it's open to different sources of funding than for-profit enterprises, but obtaining such funding can be a difficult process that depends on large amounts of information being distilled into readily-accessed formats. That in turn led England Hockey to turn to Intuitive Business Intelligence's Intuitive Dashboards to help get that information together for presentation.

With Intuitive Dashboards' systems in place, England Hockey can get a much better handle on how high current participation levels are in the system, which England Hockey's CRM Officer Laura Tuffrey assures is “...absolutely critical to how much funding we secure.” Thanks to Intuitive Dashboards' easy connection with England Hockey's customer relationship management (CRM) software IntegraNG, getting a much more precise handle on not only how many are involved in England Hockey, but also where those people come from and what demographic groups those people identify with, allowing for new potential sources of funding like grants to open up accordingly.

Better yet, this move may also help England Hockey even save some money in the short term, as thanks to the move to Intuitive Dashboards, the reporting process is scaled down from its original levels involving a single spreadsheet with multiple users. The Intuitive Dashboards system is, at last report, much easier to not only use, but also to implement, and that makes this one a powerful system for the organization to put into action. Better yet, the dashboard system can be modified according to need, and thus allows anyone with a need to access information related to England Hockey to have the best shot at getting the information that's needed, right away.

Advancements like these are likely to prove helpful to sports organizations, but the Intuitive Dashboards release is far from the only such advancement that will help sports organizations better manage usage levels and improve potential access to funding sources, where applicable. Indeed, sports organizations have a wide variety of devices available that can offer help on that front, as well as on several others like training and health and safety. A great way to see these devices in action—as well as connect with the organizations that are making such devices—is to hit the FAST Wearable Tech Expo, set to run July 23 – 24 at New York University's Kimmel Center. Several sports-related technology makers will be on hand for users to learn more, and keynote addresses will offer information on the field itself.

The use of dashboard technology may not directly translate into more funding for England Hockey, or for anyone else who uses it; grant provision is an extremely tight market with lots of potential applicants going after an increasingly scarce set of funding sources. Having command of the relevant information that the organization seeking funding comprises is certainly a better way to improve the odds of getting more funding, and for organizations in need of such funding, a better chance is much better than nothing. But gear like Intuitive Dashboards can be a big help in keeping sporting organizations running, and other sports-related hardware can keep those running in such organizations running at the best possible level as well.