Strategy and digital thinking across a national football network.

Consultancy work across diverse projects

Overview

We worked closely with the EFL, the governing body of the fourth most watched league competition in the world with 72 professional football clubs from England and Wales, and its charitable arm, the EFL Trust, to support them on a number of high-profile projects. Providing technical consultancy and project scoping support.

Challenges

GoodShip’s management team has served as a trusted partner for the EFL, assisting them through its scoping services. Projects supported include drafting an initial project brief for the EFL Trust's tender to appoint a digital agency for migrating its Official Soccer Schools website to a new e-commerce platform. The client had an initial draft, but wanted our help to ensure its comprehensiveness. During the process we supported with the delivery of digital brand assessment for the main EFL brand, identifying ways to improve representation using the existing platform and working with the incumbent digital agency.

Product

Our experience allowed them to identify gaps, highlight technical challenges, and recommend opportunities to drive projects forward efficiently and successfully across all work undertaken with the EFL and EFL Trust. Through this consultancy-based work, GoodShip* team members collaborated with existing EFL/EFL Trust staff, stakeholders, and external suppliers. They also made recommendations on new suppliers best equipped to support organisational goals and created documentation required to source new suppliers (such as briefing documents and tenders). During the process we facilitated processes to review, sift, and select shortlisted companies.

Our significant knowledge of the tech sector has meant that we have been able to anticipate and answer the kinds of questions agencies would come back with, ensuring the appropriate level of detail has been included in any documentation, minimising time spent on questions and clarifications.

Impact

Through our scoping and consultancy services, and the long-term relationship fostered with the EFL and EFL Trust, the GoodShip* team provided significant value:

1. Informed Technical Roadmaps — helping to create comprehensive technical roadmaps for various projects, ensuring that all aspects are thoroughly considered and planned.
2. Risk and Opportunity Identification — Identifying potential risks and opportunities associated with projects, enabling the EFL and EFL Trust to proactively address challenges and capitalise on opportunities.
3. Streamlined Tender Processes — By providing detailed documentation and managing tender processes, our process has saved considerable time and reduced administrative efforts for the EFL and EFL Trust when sourcing new suppliers or agencies.
4. Curated Agency Pool — We created a pool of potential candidate agencies for future projects, which can significantly reduce the time and effort required for subsequent procurement processes.