Running and China: A Long Way To Go. Dissecting the Shanghai International Marathon To Unlock Hidden Value

How Chinese are doing when it comes to managing sport events? Want to know if the Shanghai International Marathon, which took place on December 2^nd, 2012, was properly organized, meeting the standards of top running events? Will they be able to attract practitioners and tourists from all around the world?

Let’s try to rationalize the overwhelming emotions felt throughout 42 kilometers, by dissecting the Shanghai International Marathon.

As marathons are becoming more and more popular, it is mandatory to manage events with business acumen and deep understanding of the customer’s (in this case the runners, along with their families and friends) wants and needs.  A 10 thousand marathon can easily top 2M$ of direct revenue from registrations, sponsors and merchandising, in addition to another 6-7M$ of indirect revenue generated by tourism (hotel, restaurant, museums…): you easily understand what’s at stake and why you’d better do a good job.

By applying the Customer Experience Framework, which I have developed when I was Director of Customer Management Solutions for IBM in Europe, you can take a more scientific approach to understand customer requirements and assess their experience.  In short, Customer Experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products: it’s all about making your customers life easier, empowering your customers to reach their goals, save their time, being consistent and valuable across the channels (web, contact center, store, mail…) and finally continuously improving your value proposition by measuring and analyzing feedbacks.

Let’s then move from the generic customer experience framework to marathons and what I call the Runner Experience – 5 Steps Interaction Process: it starts with attracting runners planning their races for the months ahead, then making the registration easy to complete, finally creating extraordinary, unforgettable moments throughout the race: before, during, after.  And, within these 5 steps, identifying the key moments of truth (when a good experience will reap great benefits and  a negative one will have detrimental effects).

If these are the objectives, for the Shanghai International Marathon (December 2^nd, 2012) there is really a long way to go. A Japanese company withdrawing the sponsorship for the race, due to the political tensions between China and Japan, cannot be an excuse for such a poor organization, disappointing for all the 10k+ participants.

A missed opportunity.  As China is aiming at becoming a preferred destination place for tourists, the overall entertainment industry (including sport, cultural and recreational activities) is far behind from western standards.  Fixing the offering (both in terms of portfolio and quality) will be key, but it requires a complete redesign of the current value proposition. China has all the key ingredients (attitude, culture, willingness and assets) to make this redesign successful, but this will demand a significant effort from all the stakeholders in this game.

In the presentation deck you will find more on:

• the customer experience framework:  value drivers across channels; 7 key rules for a superior customer experience;
• the Runner Experience – 5 Steps Interaction Process: 25 moments of truth; the relevant channels;
• a thorough assessment of Shanghai International Marathon.