Bull Information Systems is providing a £1.2 million customer relationship management (CRM)-based billing, ticketing and marketing system for racecourse operator Northern Racing PLC.
The new CRM platform is aiming to transform the group’s ability to manage its UK racecourses – which together host 200 race meetings.
Bull is prime contractor for the implementation of wired and wireless sales point infrastructures at Northern Racing’s nine courses. The new infrastructures will be integrated with partner Serendipity Interactive’s Eventmaster dedicated ticketing software system.
Using Eventmaster, each attendee is issued with an encrypted ticket which staff, equipped with wireless handheld scanners, can check before allowing entry into the racecourse or area. Ticket security no longer depends on existing card format ticket printing or visual checks by stewards. Phase one of the implementation took place in the autumn of 2006 with roll-out at three of the group’s locations with the remaining six courses due for installation in spring this year.
Northern Racing introduced the latest in secure ticketing systems to address the difficulties of crowd control on race days and stop criminal gangs producing forged tickets and membership cards. The racing operator also took the opportunity to develop a wider CRM platform at each site and for group management to ensure web-centric sales, marketing and membership administration for all operations.
The new CRM system enables Northern Racing’s central and local management to control the business more dynamically while retaining autonomous day-to-day racecourse operations. The platform allows local racecourse managers to operate targeted marketing campaigns for meetings based on analysis of previous event’s attendance, sales and profitability. Through the CRM system’s reporting facility, general customer trends and peak visitor numbers can be identified and managed more effectively, it is claimed. The system’s real time information delivery will ultimately support group racecourses’ wider e-marketing campaigns and development of enhanced membership packages.
Northern Racing management will be able to carry out consolidated real time business reporting which is connected to the group’s central financial management function. This will help to identify key profitability indicators more quickly than before.
What they say
Northern Racing’s Financial Director, Tony Kelly said: “The new software system is enabling our racecourses to administer ticketing and badges more effectively and provide a secure perimeter. We have also been able to deal with forging of tickets by criminals. While it is early days, we know that the CRM elements will in time provide us with more efficient and flexible marketing activities.”
Each course’s ticketing system is hosted on Bull’s NovaScale Universal resilient servers with wired and wireless Cisco infrastructure connected to touch screen till points, wireless card scanners, and membership and general card printers. Each racecourse’s billing system is supported by central business continuity servers. Implementation was handled by a Bull systems integration team in conjunction with a software team from Serendipity. The partner companies worked under the direction of Northern Racing’s Project Manager Audrey Traynor, who reports to Tony Kelly at Northern Racing.
Tony Kelly added: “The commitment Bull and Serendipity have shown is tremendous. They’ve delivered over and above what we expected. While there is development work still to be completed, this is an enhanced property management system which will give us competitive advantage in the future.” Mike Dunk, Managing Director, Bull UK & Ireland said: “Bull and its partner Serendipity Interactive have shown that effective ticketing and operations management systems can be delivered for demanding, multi-entry point locations such as racecourses. Our consultancy and systems integration expertise will provide an enhanced race day experience for Northern Racing customers as well as a consolidated management and marketing platform for the group’s current and future business development needs.”
