Doing Strategy Differently - (Session 1, 2 December 2020)

Key speakers included:

  • Vicsport CEO Lisa Hasker and VicHealth CEO Dr Sandro Demaio.

  • Kate Palmer.

  • Professor Matthew Nicholson and Dr Erica Randle from La Trobe University Centre for Sport and Social Impact

  • Bowls Victoria Director Rob Sharpe and Gymnastics Victoria Director Tim Robertson.

You can find a video of the session on You Tube: Vic sport Doing Strategy Differently 2020 or visit the Vic sport website https://vicsport.com.au/events/view/1363.

The series is facilitated by Kate Palmer. Kate is the former CEO at Sport Australia, Netball Australia and Netball Victoria. She is also an experienced director as former Chair of the Victorian Institute of Sport, a Trustee of the MCG Trust, Director of the International Netball Federation and of TTNL Ltd (ANZ Championship).

The Doing Strategy Differently series aims to assist board directors in planning and managing strategy for new markets and ways of doing sport differently.

Key messages in Session 1 were short and sweet:

  • Make everyone welcome - whatever their standard, whatever they want to do

  • offer flexible training, and diverse participation options to everyone

  • change in ways that support connections with new groups, evaluate changes

  • just because you have done something and loved it for 20 years doesn’t mean that everyone else will love the same format - think out of your box

  • persevere, pivot or pull out - but think about why you are doing any of these things

  • make sure you know what your consumer/client base expects and needs - don’t second guess - ask them.

The emphasis on human centred customer service design was strong.

Bowls Victoria Director, Rob Sharpe, made it abundantly clear why Dandenong bowls club won Bowls Club of the year. They welcomed everyone, offered everyone something they could connect to ie flexible delivery of the (bowls) product.

“Not everyone walked into the club or enquired about it wanting to be a bowls player, but every enquiry had the potential to be a bowls participant of some sort.”

Any participation strategy has to align and connect with the potential participant as much as the participant.

What does this mean for any sport? Flexibility - not everyone wants to be a member of an organisation, not everyone wants to play in a league, a team, commit to Y amount of hours and X amount of training. If you want to connect to different, and more, people make strategies that allow this connection to happen.

The actual strategic design process was discussed by Professor Matthew Nicholson and Dr Erica Randle from La Trobe University Centre for Sport and Social Impact.

Persevere, Pivot or Pullout was my personal favourite “strategic directive” take away from the session. This term was used by Gymnastics Victoria Director Tim Robertson.

Robertson had a career as a high performance gymnast coach, then a private gymnast business entrepreneur with his partner. Keen to attract more young men to gymnastics Robertson and his partner decided to initiate a strategic change in the direction (a pivot) of their private gymnastics business. This pivot came in the form of specific gymnastics training for Parkour and Ninja training - with great success. A high percentage of Australian Ninja participants have come through the Robertson’s Ninja gymnastics program - and it has grown exponentially.

With their gymnastics venue closed during COVID, the Robertson’s needed to pivot the strategic direction of the business in a new direction. This direction had to be online; Baby Gym was the result.

Baby Gym focused on the isolation and anxiety that mothers with young babies were experiencing during lock down. Exercises - which could involve groups on line - were designed for Mums and babies - hence Baby Gym was born. With the removal of lock down requirements the Robertson’s pivoted their business strategy again. This time the pivot was to pivot Baby Gym from an online experience to a face to face venue activity - as an option. Online Baby Gym remains available as an option alongside Face2Face Bay Gym - offering flexibility to the participants.

Operating a private business involves a different set of structural and strategic requirements than those surrounding and supporting a NPO, however, the notion of Persevere, Pivot or Pull Out applies to any organisational structure and/or strategic directive. Each one is pertinent, but only if it is aligns with and connects to its customer base.

Dr Louise Bickrell

Guest User