Beach Volleyball and Managed Services

Over the first weekend of the Olympics I was fortunate to attend the Beach Volleyball. Everyone will have his or her opinion as to the merits of this sport’s inclusion in the Games - after all, it was more a party than sport, with loud music after every point contributing to the atmosphere that was more resonant of the Copacabana than Horseguard’s Parade – but the competitive intensity, the excitement and the skill of the competitors could not be dampened by the rain, which did indeed threaten to turn the event into mud-wrestling at one point.

What is beyond doubt is that the cynicism regarding the cost, the threatened transport chaos and the collapse of security has been replaced by an unbridled fervour of enthusiasm, patriotism and pride – it is as if the ancient sacred truce during the Games has been respected (if only this could be extended to Syria, Afghanistan and other global warzones) and the atmosphere of sheer joy in sporting excellence abounds across our capital.

So against a backdrop of challenges and potential for disaster, launched by the fantastic opening ceremony, the Olympics are in full swing and excitement continues to build. Medal disappointments for the home country and highly variable weather for outdoors events will not detract from an outstanding event of international celebration.

It may be a stretch to draw a parallel with the Olympics and the adopting by a customer of a managed service solution but I think it is potentially instructive. There are high expectations but also real concerns in preparation and transition: as the services move into live running the teething problems are clear but based on the operating philosophy and experience of the provider the efforts are legion to make the solutions work (think Sir Paul McCartney’s expert recovery of his performance of “Hey Jude” as he and the rest of the performance – backing-tape, it appeared – were out of sync) and then despite continued setbacks the overall enjoyment and benefit of the experience prevails.

So there you have it: from beach volleyball to managed services in four paragraphs! Bearing in mind that in the session I attended the pouring rain turned to baking sunshine and Team GB won their match having been a set down, the travails were clearly overcome and all of us who participated went home extremely happy! The parallels of adoption of a managed service and the Olympics is therefore in my mind definitely relevant.