Infoshare+’s ClearCore single customer view solution and Mvine’s Cloud Services Enablement platform transform how the ECB interacts with its nationwide users across multiple applications.

About the ECB

The England and Wales Cricket Board was established in 1997 as the single national governing body for all cricket in England and Wales and is responsible for the management and development of every form of cricket for men and women. It acts as a hub for many of the activities associated with the 39 county boards and around 10,000 cricket clubs, providing a range of services to a number of different user types and organisations – including players, fans, coaches, umpires, partners, sponsors and support personnel.

The ECB’s core aim is ‘to increase participation’ – whether that be playing, supporting, volunteering or officiating. It wants to form relationships with every single participant.

The challenge

The ECB needed a more unified way of interacting with over 1.5 million users across its internal and external systems in order to gain a better understanding of their needs, create an improved user experience and increase participation in cricket. This meant creating a single profile for each user across all 60 ECB applications, with appropriate access permissions. This gave rise to challenges from both the users’ perspective and from an administrative perspective, given that systems had been introduced over time and many users had multiple accounts or out-of-date information.

The solution

The ECB selected Infoshare+’s ClearCore software and Mvine’s Cloud Services Enablement platform to deliver a powerful single customer view and single sign-on solution.

Testimonial

It is not a simple task linking individuals across silo’d systems – particularly where different sources of information hold levels
of data quality captured in varied ways. from fans, to players, to coaches, to parents, to venues, to teams, to ECB board members themselves; the type of individual that interacts on the database is huge and varied. We needed a secure, flexible and clean system. Infoshare+ and Mvine have delivered exactly what we wanted – and needed.

Damian Smith,
Head of IT, The ECB

The process

The project began with using Infoshare+’s evidence-based approach to create a Single View of Cricket, linking each individual across disparate systems. These individuals will have multiple and complex interactions across their cricketing lifetime, from schools and youth cricket to club administration. For instance, a cricketer can be a paying fan and a player
with multiple roles in multiple clubs; they may attend coach courses or be a first class umpire. The Single View of Cricket joins and maintains an individual’s relationship by forming links based on data held across a variety of sources. The process validates and cleanses information to ensure data accuracy and completeness before matching it. An audit trail provides the evidence of any enhancements or match, providing vital transparency and confidence in how the data is used. As a dynamic and live system, the Single View of Cricket is updated in batch and real-time with ongoing data quality improvement.

Initially, one ECB application was chosen to start with and all of the data records within it were de-duplicated by Infoshare+’s ClearCore solution. In many cases, this resulted in a significant reduction of the number of user profiles contained within the application – especially for some of the older, public-facing applications in which users, over time, had created multiple accounts.

Having cleansed data from one application, the second application was chosen, and the same process carried out. Now, with two cleansed databases, they could be merged by ClearCore, whilst de-duplicating any records across the two.

At this point in time, the first identity provider (IDP) was instantiated. The IDP holds enough information about the user to login to the two applications – if they have access to those applications – from one place. This whole process was repeated again and again for all of the additional applications; each time updating the login information.

This stage marks the beginning of the single sign-on (SSO) environment. When the user is first invited to join the SSO environment, they are asked to select either their existing credentials to login or to choose a new set for the application – which would then be used for all applications added in the future. They also have the ability to sign the appropriate terms and conditions for those applications and will be able to maintain their profile, with any changes being automatically pushed to the appropriate applications requiring those changes.

All this is then incorporated into a multi-layered client portal built on the Mvine Cloud Service Enablement SaaS platform, which is fully compatible with mobile and tablet devices – in some cases, running entire instances as an app.

The benefits

The Single Sign On and Single View of Cricket solution achieved two
sets of benefits:

1. For users
  • One place to:
    • access appropriate terms and conditions and privacy policies
    • update profile information
    • manage all communication preferences
    • access all other relevant ECB applications
  • One set of login credentials
  • A single click away from accessing services and applications
  • A better user experience
2. For the ECB and system administrators
  • The ability to:
    • access a single, up-to-date record for each user
    • craft new and exciting services for each user
    • holistically understand user activity and trends and use this
      in growing participation levels
    • communicate e-services to users faster and more efficiently
    • manage e-mail bounce backs from one place rather than
      from multiple systems or multiple third-party agencies
  • Evidence-based data quality and ongoing management
  • A significant reduction in costs, as users can self-serve
  • Greater transparency of data overlap and usage
  • Greater information security and ICO compliance
  • Improved customer experience

Testimonial

The thoroughness, accuracy and evidence-based nature of the Infoshare+ ClearCore solution, coupled with the flexibility, agility and speed of the Mvine Cloud Services Enablement platform, has delivered a much more simplified and effective single customer view and single sign-on for the ECB that is not only totally secure, but user friendly too.

It gives easy access to all of the applications appropriate to each user, whilst offering them the ability to maintain their profile in one place and gives the ECB a clearer understanding of the breadth of participation in cricket.

Richard Onslow,
Director, Infoshare+

In summary

The ECB represents around 10,000 cricket clubs across 39 counties. Over 1.5 million users interact multiple times with 60 ECB applications covering all aspects of cricket.

ECB’s Single View of Cricket, with unique customer profiles and their single sign-on solution, combined to transform the way the ECB interacts with nationwide users across multiple applications within a totally secure portal.

Key benefits:

  • Improved user experience
  • Better understanding of participants
  • Reduction in administration costs
  • Growth in participant numbers