The Long Term Advantage of Using Kairos for Team Operations & Communication for Major Competition
“Rugby is a team sport and the biggest message over the past year and more is that if there is alignment and striving towards a common goal then great things can be achieved,” – Deon Davids, Springboks Assistant Coach
In an interview after the 2023 Rugby World Cup Final, the South African Springboks assistant coach Deon Davids was quoted talking about alignment and one common goal.
In the top flights of sport, getting world class teams on the same page can be difficult, with years of planning involved… Sports fans and supporters often see the end product: the contest between two world-class teams.
After the Springboks Rugby World Cup victory, there was a lot of talk about marginal gains, how the South African coaching staff made some key decisions that contributed to the Springboks edging out the New Zealand All Blacks who were also chasing the Webb Ellis Cup for a fourth time.
With years of planning and decision making for teams involved in any world cup, it’s crucial that operations and coaching staff begin looking into any available marginal gains early on.
Why?
Kairos is empowering elite teams around the world to remove background noise for athletes, maintain focus and consolidate better decision making, planning and international travel processes.
To unite a national team, bring them together around a common goal and understanding of each other’s roles both individually and collectively is a huge task. Even aligning vision and strategy among staff, before any athletes get involved can be tantalisingly difficult… Which is where Kairos comes in. We’re helping teams facilitate the many layers of vision, strategy and overarching goals so that at the end of the day, all the answers are at the end-users fingertips, on our system.
While the Springboks were already using the Kairos system ahead of the 2023 Rugby World Cup, they wanted to share their Kairos schedules in a digestible format to engage players in the lead up to and throughout the 2023 Rugby World Cup. The brief was simple: find a way to show the schedules, announcements, video and imagery they already had access to on their phones and desktops, on a digital screen so it was in one easy-to-view place in any chosen location.
Inception of Kairos TV
In the years leading up to the 2023 Rugby World Cup, the Springboks operations and coaching staff came to us in search of a solution that would host key information like schedule, videos, images, meal times and announcements as well as any other key updates on screens. These screens could be in their training grounds, a hotel, a locker room, anywhere that their team might need all their key information in one, easy to view place.
Kairos TV allows teams to share schedule information, announcements, messaging and both video and imagery on the screens within their training ground, stadium or hotel.
Through Kairos TV, admin users will scan a QR code, bringing their live schedule, video and any other rolling announcements to a digital screen in any location. Meaning every TV can display unique schedules, information and content, relevant to that particular team or area.
In alignment with the user-experience of Kairos generally, administrators can create their own theme, build their own layout and customise each TV to display whatever content is the most relevant to that particular screen. Kairos TV allows the content to be shared, announcements to be made and live changes to be displayed in real time. Our multi-day view option, gives teams the ability to view schedules for 3/4/5 days in advance. Ensuring everyone is well prepared and focused on the task at hand.
Rassie Erasmus, South Africa Rugby’s Director of Rugby commented, “The Kairos app has been a revelation for the Springboks, and has become a vital tool in our planning and preparation for test matches…
It’s an effective tool for any sporting team in their quest for excellence, and as SA Rugby’s Director or Rugby, I highly recommend this app to all sporting teams”.
Thank you, Springboks!
At this point, we want to take this opportunity to thank the Springboks operations and coaching staff for a collaboration like no other. On what has been one of our most exciting project and product releases yet, we are proud to continue supporting the 2023 Rugby World Cup champions through all future endeavours.
If you and your team would like to consolidate your Team
How Kairos Helps Teams Competing in Major Tournaments
The Rugby World Cup is set to take place in France from 8 September through to 28 October 2023. Falling on a year where the sport will celebrate 200 years since the initial inception of the game, teams around the world are well into crucial preparations. With 48 matches to be played across 51 days in different locations: nailing the team management, operations and communications elements has never been more important. Operations staff globally are under a growing amount of pressure and Kairos has the proven tools to relieve the biggest pain points experienced during these often draining campaigns.
With World Cup squads like South Africa and Australia using Kairos already, we explored the compatibility of Kairos at three key stages of the tournament:
- Pre-Tournament Planning & Preparation
Organising logistics, accommodation, training facilities and transportation can be a daunting task. Kairos provides a comprehensive event and travel management platform that streamlines the process for the key staff involved.
With club seasons now finished, players involved in a club and a national squad both using Kairos will enjoy the ease of navigating between their two accounts on the Kairos app. While players will be coming together from all over the world, the travel feature ensures everyone is fully up to speed on travel plans, and is in the right place, at the right time. Staff can allocate bus, train, or flight seats, along with hotel room numbers, tickets or boarding passes to individual players – saving staff from back and forth messaging on platforms such as WhatsApp.
Next up is data collection ahead of the tournament. Staff can send out information requests ahead of time whether to be stored within individual athlete profiles or perhaps more generally through our survey feature. Gathering and storing information such as dietary requirements, kit sizes, wellbeing surveys or even ticket requests are easily managed meaning less headaches for staff and athletes alike. For the more private elements, our bespoke permissions ensure that only individuals can see the chosen information, maintaining confidentiality throughout. No need to worry if those documents need to be signed, that’s where our simplistic e-signatures feature helps speed up the granular processes with players being able to review and sign documents from their mobile device.
Hearing directly from a great of the game who has first hand experience using Kairos, Rassie Erasmus, South Africa Rugby’s Director of Rugby said, “The Kairos app has been a revelation for the Springboks, and has become a vital tool in our planning and preparation for test matches…
It’s an effective tool for any sporting team in their quest for excellence, and as SA Rugby’s Director or Rugby, I highly recommend this app to all sporting teams”.
- Tournament Communication & Operations
While the more granular logistics are left with the event organisers, Kairos simplifies training sessions, preparation phases and game-day by showing athletes key timings, starting lineups, game files or videos. The Kairos calendar becomes essential in the ever-changing world of elite sport – through scheduling live changes, updating team events, sharing individual player information such as media requirements and treatment allocations – allowing the player to have one single source of information. Gone are the days of creating PDFs that are constantly changing throughout the day or the need to rely on SMS messages to notify athletes of changes. Kairos takes care of the granular details, allowing athletes to focus on their performance.
Our favourite features for this stage of the tournament are: Kairos schedule, messenger, Kairos TV and facility management.
Kairos TV is a revolutionary new product which allows teams to show schedule information, announcements, messaging and both video and imagery on the screens within their training ground, stadium or hotel. While Kairos TV will not be officially launched until later this month as we catch up with demand from current customers, do feel free to get in touch to explore how it might work for you.
- Post Tournament Feedback & Evaluation
After the winners are crowned, it’s time to consolidate all learnings from the tournament…the good, the bad and the ugly.
Kairos facilitates the feedback and evaluation phase through file sharing, messenger and surveys.
That’s not forgetting the journey home where the travel feature will play a key role in returning players safely to family and club teams.
We understand implementing a new piece of technology can be a daunting task when athletes and colleagues are relying on the immediate success of the implementation. Often, there’s a lot at stake when implementing an innovative yet simple solution to replace traditional processes and ways of working. Kairos has been built intuitively to allow for streamlined onboarding, tailored for each team based on their nuances needs. Ben Golling’s, Fiji 7s Coach reflected on his experience with Kairos, “I’m really enjoying Kairos. It’s the first bit of software I can operate with ease and without needing a huge user manual and non-stop support. It’s similar to Apple’s idea of plug and play technology.”
If, like world class rugby teams, using Kairos is of interest to operate and communicate effectively throughout your next tournament, season or campaign, get in touch to schedule a demo today.
Good luck to all teams competing!
