On Wednesday the 13th of February we had a roundtable with HCL featuring Ian Fox, the head of media operations of Manchester United. HCL hosted indysource and her members at Vinkeles Amsterdam, a Michelin starred restaurant in heart of Amsterdam.

We were welcomed with a glass of champagne and some bites, which we could enjoy during the introduction of this evening. Ben Waterston explained to us the nature of HCL and what they do in the Netherlands and worldwide. Thereafter Ian Fox shared his story about his seven-year journey with Manchester United to obtain a platform which gives their 659 million fans access to all of United’s news and relevant information. Now their application is realized and their app is top-ranking in multiple countries. By users, this app is rated a 4.8 out of 5. According to Ian, the reason that it is not rated 5 out of 5 is that after games in which Manchester United does not perform up to the standard the reviews are significantly worse. 

When Ian Fox started there was no supplier who was able to meet their requirements for their app. The app required the integration of multiple software suppliers in the background and had to be able to mobilize Man U’s fans with compelling content. HCL decided to partner with Manchester United. Their partnership succeeded and resulted in the launch of the app last year. 

According to Ian Fox, the biggest accomplishment of their partnership with HCL is related to the real-time hosting of statistics of matches played by Manchester United. The challenge was that they had to compete with other apps that use complicated mathematical predication models, which do make those apps incredibly fast, but not reliable. The development team realized that their app receives there information so fast that they had to delay the push notification, otherwise the notification would reach their audience before they see the goal on live television. 

During the dinner, Ian Fox answered questions from indysource members regarding the challenges he faced during the development of the app. The group seemed especially interested in the relationship between Manchester United and the 23 software suppliers that have integrated their services into the app. It was to convince the software suppliers to make their software compatible with the app, but this process was mutually beneficial at the end, as this compatibility feature also led to more business for the software suppliers. The discussion was also about the trust of management, as there were little to no results in the first couple years of the journey.