TCS to help London Marathon personalise customer experience

Announcing an extension of its partnership with London Marathon Events, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Thursday said it will implement a new data lake using Microsoft Azure to help the former improve customer experience.

The new unified data platform will offer personalised customer experience for athletes, participants, spectators, charities and sponsors of the mass participation event organiser, a statement said.

The project will eventually personalise campaigns across events as well as provide the management team with visualisation tools to make real-time decisions and to make it safer for people to participate. 

“This will help drive more participation, create a safer environment and an enhanced runner experience,” the country’s largest information technology (IT) services exporter said.

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London Marathon Events is the organiser of the Virgin Money London Marathon, as well as other events, including Prudential Ride London, The Vitality London 10,000, Westminster Mile, Children with Cancer UK Swim Serpentine and The Vitality Big Half.

Since its inception in 1981, the organisation has collected data on multiple events, athlete performances, running records and other special moments, which can be used to create unique experiences, TCS said.

However, the data is stored in multiple silos and access to it is limited, TCS added.

The new data lake will unify all data silos, allowing London Marathon to democratise access to its information by making it searchable and enabling the delivery of valuable insights and analysis, the statement said.

“We were hugely impressed by TCS’ work on the official app for the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon. We knew TCS was a natural partner for us due to the team’s extensive experience in creating forward-thinking data strategies for organisations like ours,” Steven Foster, director of transformation at London Marathon Events, said.

Read: TCS to accelerate digital transformation at Kingfisher

According to multiple British media reports, over 45,000 people signed up to run the 40th London Marathon -- its first virtual one -- in October. The offline race, which was first postponed from April, was cancelled in August due to Covid-19’s spread risk.

All non-elite athletes participated remotely, picking their own 26.2-mile courses. Participants logged their progress on an app to make their timing official and secure medals.