Discuss about the Hockey Australia Video Case Study Analysis.
The objectives of this paper is to explore the video content as the case study of Sports Industry Associations such as Baseball WA and Hockey WA and understand various concepts, ideas, and approaches related to the case. The areas that are addressed in this case study analysis include challenges, approaches, importance, actor, typical workday, role, leadership style, company, industry, differentiation, revenue generation, customers, reasons of buying, organizational structure, key events, competition, future, and role of government. The paper critically analysis the presentation given by the CEO posted on the YouTube channel with respect to these areas and makes an attempt to understand most about the CEO and about the company for which he is working (Tonkin 2015).
The case study has been chosen for two reasons – first, the sports industry is very popular and is driven by leaders and two, the videos that have the CEO talking about the company explaining its strategies was easily available. The next section explores the case critically and addresses the objectives of this research paper.
The sports industry is a very diverse industry and involves production, facilitation, organization, and promotion of a sports activity. Sports across the world are played under the guidance of some governing bodies that are specially created for making rules and regulations for respective sports. These sports include baseball, basketball hockey, golf, cricket, rugby football, tennis, and swimming. Baseball and Hockey are two popular sports played in Australia. Baseball WA and Hockey WA are the governing bodies in Australia for respective sports.
Shane Tonkin, previous CEO of Baseball WA, gave an interview that speaks about the portfolio of the company. Baseball WA is a governing body from Western Australia for Baseball sports. It was formed in 1999 with merger of West Australian Baseball League, West Australian Junior Baseball League and Baseball Development Foundation.
Hockey WA is a national regulatory body or association for Hockey in Western Australia. Every state has its own Hockey association just like Hockey WA and they all work in collaboration. The organization has a traditional hierarchical structure head by CEO under whom is the CFO and then an executive team including general manager, commercial manager, and high performance director. The commercial manager oversees both off and on field sports events. The association maintains partnerships with other entities like sports recreation event corporation, Fortescue, and other partners from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, and New Zealand.
Under every state, the players have four pathways to reach professional levels at the national level that go through the state system of these associations. National Futures program makes the entry level for the sports people in a national program. In the futures group 40 girls and 40 boys of age below 18 are selected. Then , they move to national junior teams with 25 of them in each squad. The next level is the national development program which takes 15 of these athletes in each national program. Next come the national senior teams like kookaburras Hockeyroos that have 25-30 national athletes. After the athletes cross these four pathways, they reach to a level where they can play in Olympics.
On field, the sports training and games are the main products of sports associations but off field they have a variety of more products such as marketing arm, finance, game development, commercial properties, communication and media.
One of the core principles that sports governing bodies works on is making high performance teams in each sport. Creation of a high performance team from top coaches, technicians, butritionists, doctors, and physios has helped company in standing strong as an organization.
Another most important part of the company’s approach to development is the corporate culture and the teams. The company has progressed on this front by using several strategies such as having a strong and committed top management team including CEO, CIO, and Sponsorship managers. Hockey WA has a head office in Melbourne that is run by 30 people working as staff and around 70 atheletes who go through the state pathway programs.
Revenue growth management has been another core strategy of the Company as it has worked to increase its revenues through increase in the product portfolio year on year. Some of the strategies that are used for revenue growth in the company include utilization of the opportunity to sell in the off-field market through additional products.
Shane was hired as the sponsorship manager when the association had a plan to move its high performance office or training institute to Canberra to stay in the international league of recreation. While the association has its divisions spread in WA and Canberra, the coordination is still mainted between core team people such as CEO and Sponsorship manager who continuously collaborate.
The developments in the world and advances in the economy demand for the change of strategies as the earlier strategies that have worked earlier may not work. There is a need to understand what changes are happening in consumer preferences and accordingly take risks. The company earlier had a tendency to make teams look perfect through strong training provided and then come up with a strategy for promoting the sports. However, with increasing importance of commercial sustenance, company has changed its approach from just training to build top performing teams to also building commercial success through revenue growth strategies such as off-field product sales, fundraising events, commercial database expansion, and government funding.
The company has a strategy of taking advantage of the opportunities for which the company has decided to focus on some core strategies and these include acceleration of the growth of the Company Portfolio, driving revenue growth, strengthening the value creation in the company through high performance teams, increase in number of fundraising events, commercial partnerships, and unlocking the people of their people.
Revenue growth: Revenue growth involves execution of fundraising activities and gathering funds from the government as well as bringing other products and services to sell in the off-field market including finance, communication, and sports goods.
Commercial Partnerships: The association keeps commercial databases intact and have partnerships with other entities for the commercial growth.
Unlocking the power of people: The company builds a team of highest performers giving them best training such that top teams are formed from the association. High performance teams not only bring the direct winning benefits but also their high equity attracts more investors and spectators to events.
The company has no direct competition as it can actually work in collaboration with other states while at the same time athletes competing with each other. The collaboration brings these associations mutual benefits.
Shane Tonkin, who was the CEO of Baseball WA has a 15 years of professional experience of playing Baseball. He has helped Baseball WA create national and international baseball leagues with the Perth Team. After having six years of experience in the company, he moved to Hockey WA as the sponsorship manager for four years and then commercial partnership manager for five and half years which he is currently pursuing. Shane closely coordinates with CEO over Skype calls in the current organization to take decisions on building and executing strategies for the organization. From the understanding of the case, some responsibilities of a CEO could be identified as follows:
As a CEO of Baseball Australia, Shane was found to be a transformational leader who is emotionally intelligent, passionate, and energetic who motivates and inspires the company workforce. A transformational leader helps people in their learning and development as he basis his people management strategies on the belief that higher performance is achieved through greater satisfaction in people. He worked to produce a high performance team in the company which was called Perth Team. Innovation is brought by such a CEO with new large scale moves that were not taken earlier and can make a big different for an organization. . Shane had helped Baseball WA create national and international baseball leagues that had brought transformation not just in the company but in the whole baseball community.
As the investment or partnership manager, Shane spends a typical day dealing with athletes who need his support, sponsors, and commercial partners. He is also involved in other activities like budgeting and business planning for growth. For these, he has to coordinate with different people including marketing teams, finance managers, line managers, hockey heads, and administrators.
To get more revenues for the organization, the company uses the strategy to increase the number of events that are organized. The funds are also gained by seeking investments from government funds and Australian Sports commission. When the events are conducted in different places, other state associations also get involved which gives the organization chances to increase revenues. Other entities also get associated with the sports through events such as corporal tourism arm, and corporates that are interesting in branding themselves through these events. Different fundraising events can help get more revenues for the company.
The leadership style of Shane is taken from his own experience with athletes where he analysed the system to understand what works with them. This suggest a collaborative leadership in which the leader does not see himself as a leader but a captain who brings every one together to facilitate support and coordination in teams. Shane believes in leading by examples and acting in right ways that are seen by athletes and others so that they follow the leader themselves by acting the right ways. Shane is open to listening to ideas of others and accept them for development as long as the sport is getting benefited.
The marketing and communication departments not always fit well with the athletes and that is where the leadership of Shane comes to help. He has to ensure that while the teams remain number one and two in the world, the business also keeps growing in performance and experiences revenue growth. While proper trainings have to be given to the sports people, the company also needs to engage the sponsors and investors. The association may sell properties to commercial investors and use other ways to get returns on investments through benefits like staff engagement, and TV commercial earnings. While athletes should be provided with best facilities, the association also needs to ensure that commercial databases are well taken care of and investors are sufficiently kept satisfied with the performance of the organization.
From the study of the case and its critical analysis, some insights were developed about the beverage industry, the company, its working and the CEO. Based on these insights some recommendations can be made for the company to grow in the sports market such as:
Conclusion
This case was prepared to explore how businesses work with a video case study. The case study chosen was of Hockey WA and the content studied was the video of the commercial partnerships manager of the company talking about the strategies of the company for taking growth challenges. It was found that Shane had followed a transformational leadership as a CEO in earlier company, Baseball WA and has made many changes in the structure of the organization and its strategies. These changes included shifting of focus from making the perfect team to increasing commercial income. Based on the case study analysis, some recommendations were made such as adoption of a situational leadership for the long run, development of competencies in workforce for better performance, practice of different strategies for volume driven and top line driven markets, and addition of products in portfolio through addition of more products in the market.
References
Kesting, Peter, John P. Ulhøi, Lynda Jiwen Song, and Hongyi Niu. 2015. “The impact of leadership styles on innovation management – a review and a synthesis.” Journal of Innovation Management 22-41.
Tonkin, Shane. 2015. Background Questions – Shane Tonkin; Commercial Partnerships Manager; Hockey Australia. 29 November. Accessed May 6, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwOr4GzyI6w&feature=youtu.be.
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