Australian Rugby Union: Tackling the competition with a digital engagement strategy

Client Profile The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) is the governing body of Rugby Union in Australia. Founded in 1949, it oversees eight member unions representing each state and territory; the national team, the Qantas Wallabies; and all professional and amateur aspects of the game.

Opportunity Rugby is intensely competitive—both on and off the field. As a sport, rugby competes in one of the most challenging markets in the world, striving with other major sports for the hearts and minds of stakeholders and supporters, as well as fighting for marketplace visibility, greater revenue share and new ways of interacting with fans.

The ARU looked to technology to deal with these challenges. With more than 600,000 national participants in Australia, the organisation saw the potential to engage supporters by harnessing the power of customer relationship management (CRM) to bring them closer to the action.

To more effectively leverage its CRM technology, the ARU needed to develop a detailed strategy that would increase the organisation’s focus on developing a digital presence and overcome the obstacles of driving increased participation and awareness, while simultaneously creating new commercial opportunities.

As part of its role as ARU’s official technology collaborator, Accenture helped the organisation create a strategy to address these specific issues, ultimately leading to the design and development of a platform called Rugby Link; an inclusive, national registration, competition management and community platform.

Solution Working collaboratively with the ARU, Accenture mobilised a team of digital strategists, specialising in marketing and CRM, to address the issues of engaging fans, driving participation and capturing opportunities from digital content and channels.

Liaising closely with ARU’s marketing and technology departments, the Accenture team was able to efficiently profile capabilities and prioritise strategic imperatives needed for customer lifecycle management. They were also able to develop highly customised frameworks to help ARU drive audience communications which revolved around a fan contact approach and segmenting user intents and interactions.

These ranged from activities such as seeking information and becoming involved in community activities, through to purchasing tickets and merchandise or renewing memberships, and were important in understanding how to interact with users across different channels.

Results Alongside the development of a two-year fan acquisition, engagement and retention plan, Accenture also identified revenue opportunities through the new strategy.

Additionally, the nature of working closely with senior stakeholders at ARU allowed the creation of suitable sales and service processes within the organisation, contributing to the successful adoption of the identified strategic and marketing tactics needed to enhance communication with different rugby audiences.

Accenture has played a key role within the ARU. Through increases in CRM and marketing productivity, the organisation has experienced large successes in achieving its vision to connect more closely with fans and to develop its market share in the Australian sporting sector.

“The ARU and Accenture are pioneering the role technology plays in transforming the way people engage with sport and rugby”, said Jade MacAuslan, CRM Manager, Australian Rugby Union. “The two have worked closely to develop a long term strategic plan, mapping out the road to making digital channels and technology a primary way for rugby fans and participants to interact and engage with rugby, right up to standing at pitch-side.”

“Most notably Accenture has been working closely with the ARU to deliver a single digital engagement platform for rugby players, parents, coaches, fans and supporters to manage, follow and engage with rugby across all interaction points from buying membership to registering to play”, commented Jade.

About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 323,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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