Baku 1st European Games

How did Baku re-launch their official pre Games website?

Presented by // Thomas Aebeløe

25 November 2014

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International Sales Manager

Thomas Aebeløe

AGENDA:BackgroundChallengeSolution

Results

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BACKGROUND

Background

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• The Baku European Games Operations Committee (BEGOC) will run and organize the Games in cooperation with the European Olympic Committees.

• Will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, on June 2015.

• More than 6,000 athletes from across the continent.

• 20 sports: 16 Olympic and four non-Olympic.

• 18 competition venues, including the new 68,000 seat National Stadium.

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CHALLENGE

Challenge

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• Baku was awarded the right to host the inaugural European Games in December 2012.

• An unusual situation in which the organization will grow to the size of a large enterprise and then be closed down in less than two years.

• From a team of 10 in early 2013 to a 1,600-strong force of paid employees plus thousands of volunteers for the Games themselves.

Challenge

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• For its digital and social media strategy, Baku 2015 required a robust, solid foundation to popularize the European Games and welcome digital visitors from around the world to access and enjoy the website on a wide range of devices and browsers.

• BEGOC’s digital team in particular required a digital platform with:• layout flexibility

• easy-to-use

• fast editing

• support for many languages.

• Web traffic will soar during the run-up to the Games, so hosting flexibility that can cope with huge bursts of demand will be very important.

SOLUTION

Solution

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• BEGOC selected Sitecore and the Sitecore® Experience Platform™.

• Signed a supply and sponsorship agreement with Sitecore to make it an integral part of providing the digital experience for Baku 2015.

• Sitecore was chosen because of its reputation as a company that creates and manages websites of the highest standard.

• BEGOC will use Azure, with the core Sitecore Experience Platform servers at BEGOC and public-facing servers benefiting from the huge scale, responsiveness, and flexibility offered by the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers across 13 regions.

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RESULTS

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• The first phase of the revamped Baku2015.com website was completed on 12 June 2014.

• The website went live on 21 August 2014.

• The initial website project delivered on time, thanks to Sitecore’s ability to deliver and to easily manage changes late in the process without excessive reworking. BEGOC’s digital team, together with Sitecore has established a robust content structure and editing workflow.

• The website features a bold design, and all content is optimized for multiple device types and screens, so fans can connect with the European Games at any time and from anywhere.

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• With the Sitecore Experience Platform, the site will also integrate social media commentary for sports fans around the world so they can engage with all the action, and each other, in real time.

• The platform is fully integrated with Azure, which ensures that BEGOC can optimally deploy and scale the website delivery infrastructure in a just a few mouse clicks, automatically managing the site delivery with Azure distributing the traffic geographically across two data centers.

• Since the relaunch, the site—which is currently available in two languages (Azerbaijani and English)—has attracted visitors from more than 130 countries around the world.

QUESTIONS?