The cloud migration fulfilling FC Bayern Munich’s AI ambitions

Management for Germany’s record-holding football championship team aims to optimize processes and provide new digital services using AI. Here, CIO Michael Fichtner discusses what the club’s IT department has implemented, and what advantages they’ll bring to the company internally, and to fans around the world.

Why did FC Bayern migrate to SAP Cloud ERP Private?

Migrating to the cloud gives us access to innovation and other developments. Some SAP services are only available in the cloud environment, so these are now accessible to us. An important aspect was the simplified integration of other technologies or services predominantly or exclusively provided as cloud services.

Another important aspect was the realignment within IT. The migration allows us to focus more on process, application, and business innovation, and therefore on topics that’ll further develop and future-proof our company.

The use of highly available cloud infrastructures also provides us with additional security since in critical situations, we’ll benefit from professional backup and disaster recovery strategies. With all the dedication our employees have shown so far, this will be a further step toward professionalizing operations and further reducing risks.

In addition to security, scalability and flexibility are always important to us. Computing power, storage, and network resources can be scaled more quickly with a cloud provider. This is particularly significant in the frequent peak situations of our business model. For our projects, new systems like sandbox, test, and POC systems can be deployed faster and in a more standardized way, without requiring any investment or new equipment. Plus, security and compliance are becoming increasingly important for us. So migration allows us to leverage our partner’s established security features, and centrally managed access and authorization concepts simplify our operations. Certified data centers also directly support us to meet regulatory, association, and official requirements.

SAP’s strategy is consistently moving toward the cloud, and migration has allowed us to eliminate the risk of eventually having to rely on an outdated on-premise technology so we were able to eliminate legacy tech through migration as well as upgrade to modern, high-performance hardware.

How many applications or systems have been migrated to the cloud?

We migrated our multi-tiered SAP S/4HANA system. But before the migration, we worked together to consolidate our system landscape, merging 52 systems carrying fan data into S/4. There, the central fan database was established, the Golden Fan Record was built, and the data was combined into a redundancy-free, 360-degree view. So this approach was a significant milestone to implement our sovereign cloud strategy.

So we’ve only migrated one system physically, but in abstract terms, our phased approach allowed us to migrate data from all 52 systems to the cloud through consolidation, thus taking a big step toward controlled and consistent data sovereignty.

Which digital innovations does FC Bayern want to implement with the cloud?

Our business model is heavily influenced by peak situations like knockout phases in sporting competitions, live broadcasts, and special sales activities. In these situations, we need to not only scale technically, but provide innovative process solutions that reliably support peak loads.

Consider the short timeframes of ticket requests that must be processed during knockout stages. Or the launch of jerseys, where fans, even during peak periods, have the right to expect that goods will be delivered as quickly as possible. So in departments experiencing significant annual peaks in volume, it’s crucial employees receive highly automated support. Handling these seasonal peaks would otherwise be impossible.

We rely heavily on solutions supported by AI and digital agents, so developing them is always a joint initiative with our specialist departments.

What digital services and personalization strategies is FC Bayern planning to use to reach fans worldwide with the help of the new cloud platform?

Our aim is to address our fans in an individual, personalized way. The way forward is to move away from mass communication and large target groups or segments, and toward a personal approach, specifically tailored to the needs of each fan.

For this, we need the relevant data and ability to process large amounts of data in compliance with data protection regulations. This isn’t feasible without the appropriate infrastructure and scalability. We see personalized communication as a crucial element to remain relevant to our fans in the future. Mass mailings to fans via email, push notifications, or standardized content without specific relevance to the individual fan won’t help us remain attractive to them.

By providing targeted, relevant content, we want to further increase the attractiveness of FC Bayern Munich, and ensure the relationship with fans for the future.

What advantages do you expect from SAP Cloud ERP Private and AI?

A crucial factor in our decision to migrate was the conviction that we could significantly optimize our internal processes by using AI approaches. Specifically, we’re working on corresponding implementations in HR using SAP’s SuccessFactors and Concur. Initial approaches have also been developed and are being put in logistics and financial accounting. We expect this will allow us to increasingly automate more activities, freeing up colleagues in specialist departments to focus on specific tasks that require a particular approach or interaction. Ultimately, this will enable us to provide better service to fans as we gain time to address other issues.

What role did digital sovereignty or data sovereignty play in the decision to migrate to the SAP cloud?

Digital sovereignty, and control over our data and the data of our fans, have been of paramount importance for many years, and have guided our actions for just as long. Driven by this principle, we’ve developed and operated our key applications ourselves.

With the capabilities our partners have made available to us, we could implement these requirements in a sovereign cloud environment without compromising standards. So we’re confident we’ve not created any dependencies and will remain operational in the years to come. We’re convinced that the de facto and legal control of our critical data is sustainably ensured in our chosen setup.