Fixing Data Silos in Professional Sport

Micro-Interview #53 with Matthias Werner: where club data gets stuck, why duplicate entry and disconnected systems create more damage than they seem to, and how a small digital budget should be spent. Professional clubs do not always need another platform; often the bigger opportunity is to fix the handoffs between the systems and workflows they already have.

In the interview Boštjan Korošak describes two types of silos. The first sits between systems: ticketing, memberships, the online shop, website, app and CRM all hold useful supporter data but often do not communicate, so the same supporter effectively appears as several different people. The second is more basic but still very common: paper, Excel and duplicate data entry, where every handoff costs time and creates another opportunity for mistakes.

There is no universal "cheapest connection", he argues. The first step is to observe the workflow – where the same information is entered twice, where people wait for somebody else, which handoff happens most often – then simplify the process and fix the smallest high-value part first. The workflow replaced most often is duplicate data handling; in youth football, a simple digital form connected to one central record can replace paper forms, Excel files and phone calls and save tens of hours over a season.

Given a small budget and one season, he would spend the first part understanding the club before buying anything, then choose a small number of improvements: at least one that removes a real internal bottleneck and one that supporters can actually feel. He would deliberately not spend on technology simply because it looks modern – no new app, full website rebuild, expensive CRM or AI features unless the initial review shows a clear problem they would solve.