Racing Digital Launches
Press Release from Racing Digital:
Our Vision
We are Racing Digital – a 50/50 Joint Venture company created by the BHA and Weatherbys to transform and serve the sport we love by creating a next generation digital platform for managing horse racing.
Over the next three years, we will replace many of the systems that you use (such as Racing Admin) with a new product that allows you to interact with the sport more easily, whilst maintaining the stability and reliability that the current technology platform that serves the sport has offered.
Racing Digital’s technology platform will respond much faster to change, using data in a more intelligent way and put you, our customers, at the heart of everything we do. Our customer group is extensive and covers all participants, consumers of data, Weatherbys and BHA teams.
This is a huge opportunity for the sport to harness the power of technology and for digital innovation to play a critical role in the sport’s COVID recovery plan
Our Team
We have assembled an exceptional team and appointed world-class partners to help us deliver this significant project.
We conducted an extensive search to appoint a Chair and Managing Director. Chris Batterham was appointed as our Chair in January 2021. Chris has over 35 years of experience as both an executive and non-executive Director in high technology companies. He has served as a non-executive director on a number of very successful public and private companies including Blue Prism where he is deputy chairman, NCC group, Eckoh, SDL and Betfair, where he served as its fi rst non-executive director. He has had horses in training for over 20 years and currently has a horse with Mark Johnston and a broodmare at Chasemore Farm that had her first foal this year.
Steve Gibson has been appointed Managing Director, to run the company and the project. Steve has over 20 years of experience in Change Management and Technology, working in a multitude of industries, and spent the past 8 years at the BHA.
Joining Steve are Sarah Gutteridge (Product Manager), Marc Huglin (Programme Manager) and Jon Dee (Change Manager). Georgia Misson joined in August as Product Owner.
We have a small office in Sharnbrook, Bedford from which we will operate and we intend to spend as much time as possible talking to our customers either here, onsite or virtually.
Our Partners
After a hugely competitive tender process, we have also appointed two, best-in-class technology partners to work alongside.
• TEKenable are Microsoft Business Applications Partner of the year and are experts in creating digital transformation through low-code platforms. They will lead on the Technology and Build elements of the project.
• Each&Other are European Design Agency of the Year and are responsible for ensuring the needs of our customers are represented throughout (so it is very likely you’ll hear from them soon).
What’s Next?
The first 6-months of our project are focused on understanding the needs of our customers. We truly believe that we can only create the best product for you to use to interact with the sport by finding out exactly what you need and how you would like to use it.
The following 2 and a half years will see us build the product. We are building iteratively, therefore it is likely that you will start to see changes to the platforms from Q3 2022. However, some elements of the current platform will remain in use until July 2024.
If you would like to be involved in our workshops (which will be discussions around how you use the current system, any ideas around what can be done better or any other comments) or would just like to have a chat about what we’re doing, drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll be in touch. This is a project that directly affects you on a daily basis and your involvement early is crucial to its success, we look forward to hearing from you.
We believe we have all the required elements in place to deliver our vision. With your help, we can deliver a platform not just for today but one that continues to evolve to serve the needs of our sport for years to come.
Additional Information
Company Structure
Racing Digital is a joint venture, limited company owned 50/50 by Weatherbys and BHA.
TEKenable
Founded in 2002, TEKenable is an innovative technology company focused on delivering the very latest ‘Cloud’ Technology Platforms to mid and large-scale enterprises. TEKenable are committed to transforming forward-thinking mid to large scale businesses into digital businesses. Delivering the very latest ‘Cloud’ platforms, we work with organisations to accelerate their digital capability in order to realise a real business advantage.
TEKenable are a Microsoft Gold Certifi ed Partner for Azure Cloud and Application Development and Microsoft Business Applications Partner of the Year. This expertise, coupled with our ISO standard delivery capability (ISO9001), and cyber security (ISO27001), ensures the quality of our work.
In 2019 TEKenable was recognised in the Deloitte Fast50 awards and also won the Deloitte Fast50 ‘Impact of Technology’ award. In 2020 we were again included in the Fast50. We have a global reach with offi ces in the UK, Ireland, Hungry, Spain, UAE and Pakistan and substantial expertise in equine related systems.
Each&Other
Each&Other is a strategic User Experience (UX) design fi rm delivering great digital products to our clients through better customer experience and better design.
Each&Other have a world-leading team with vast experience in harnessing customer insights and turning them into successful digital products through a design process that is grounded in customer insight and aimed at designing the “right thing” for users.
For over 20 years we’ve fused in-depth research with insightful user-centred design, to turn customer experience into an unfair business advantage for some of the world’s biggest brands. Our track record has led us to being recognised as European UX Agency of the Year 2020 and Global UX & Design Agency of the year 2021. Each&Other works globally across Ireland, UK, EU, Middle East and USA.