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Planning for a Scalable Digital Roadmap

Setting the digital pace for the world’s largest marathon

The Challenge

New York Road Runners is the world's largest running organization. Every year, hundreds of thousands of runners participate in over 60 annual races, including five half marathons and the world's largest marathon - the New York City Marathon. What started out as a simple running club over 30 years ago, has transformed into a leading brand in the athletic events space.

As the New York Road Runners expanded their footprint, they experienced a new challenge: keeping up with the increase in organizational popularity. The current business processes, digital and IT infrastructure was just not suited to support the current size of the organization. The Senior Leadership saw this for what it was, an opportunity – an opportunity was to build a world class digital infrastructure that would enhance the overall experience of their running community.

The Approach

Laying the groundwork for a digital roadmap starts with understanding the people, processes and products that play a role within an organization. Our initial engagement with the NYRR team involved conducting a technology audit - spending weeks embedding ourselves into their business. Icreon’s team of strategist interviewed dozens of stakeholders, from departmental leaders to daily operators, to gain an understanding of existing technology’s impacts on different areas of the business.

We covered everything from race details to volunteer management to runner's bib assignments – all which need be coordinated in unison to ensure races can be held without a hitch. Additionally, we mapped out the processes and workflows that are essential for operations to run smoothly.

How do you get bigger without getting bigger?

The Solution

The exercise lent itself to a complete report that identified major risks, people dependencies, skill sets and clear next steps. We realized that before NYRR could begin any path toward digital maturity, there needed to be a single enterprise system that powers all events and ultimately becomes the organization’s north star.

Post-assessment, Icreon put forth a high-level digital roadmap for NYRR with a tactical way to deliver on the vision for a single enterprise application that drives the organization. Using the audit report as a catalyst, we outlined the major digital gaps within the organization and charted out a list of the most business-critical priorities to shift focus on.

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