In an era when anything and everything is getting user friendly, with better analytic and other enriching enhancements through induction of technology, sports is an area which is not behind. With Games Management System already in place for major sporting events, the extension of these to national championships is a move further in this path.
If you ask seasoned sports management professionals, who have seen it all- from the era when everything stayed manual or least impacted, to an era of each and everything getting technologically advanced- they’ll hail technology for solving multiple issues, expediting the processes involved.
In normal organizations also, technology has played a vital role in smoothing the processes via customized softwares like CRM/ERM systems thereby impacting on efficiency and performance.
Further to major sporting technology impact on global event, the relatively small or geographically limited sporting events are also embracing technology. In line with this comes a new chapter in Indian Field Hockey arena, after Hockey India’s announcement of implementing Tournament Management System at the 6th Hockey India National Championship 2016. This is for the first time Hockey India will be using any Tournament Management Software to manage its flagship events.
The Tournament Management System is a new, custom-built application which includes the requirements of the planning/operational modules at the National Championship.
It will replace the spreadsheets which were used as of now in managing players, teams, officials, matches and basic reporting, adding some features and performing the time-consuming compilation of statistics automatically. Tournament Management System is designed to contain all current and future tournaments involving Hockey India.
The software system is designed by an Indian origin hockey player, Mr. Hari Kant, who has done it while working for AltiusRT, a company which creates web applications to capture and showcase realtime sports stats around the world. TMS has been successfully adopted by the Federation of International Hockey as well as specific country clubs and federations including Australia, Canada and now, India.
Speaking about this new development, the Hockey India Secretary General, Mohd. Mushtaque Ahmad said,” Our aim at Hockey India is to constantly innovate and implement strategies that help in the overall growth of the sport.”
Further he added,“ We have been utilizing the TMS for the Hockey India League and have now extended the system to the Hockey India Annual National Championships as well. For the first time such a technology has been adopted for such a large national level tournament.”
The web based management system will allow cross location multiple uploads of scores, ease of use, editing and access – all of which saves hundreds of man hours & multi location coordination. But most importantly, it offers data and statistics which can be used by the teams and coaches to study performance and create trajectories which have a direct impact on performance as well. The system will, therefore, help in creating better game strategies.
Hockey India, with this new move, tries to upgrade the strategy making session to that level where rich sporting boards in India and away have reached, like for instance, cricket which uses technology in its games strategy making. This seems to be a step towards better strategy-making for the upcoming Summer Olympics which is scheduled in August this year.