INNOVATION
Keeping egos out of it I started as a competitive rider, representing New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games and World Championships. I was an okay bike rider: good enough to be there, but not good enough to win. I was very lucky to be able to get to travel the world and live out my dream as a semi- professional cyclist. At the same time, I also developed a career in the engineering industry and helped other riders with their training plans. Somehow, I caught the eye of the New Zealand Team, which invited me to be their sprint coach. A spell in French cycling followed before I joined Team GB. In developing high-performance teams, which includes supplier’s, being open and honest about performance is critical. We’re in an industry where everybody’s passionate about what they are doing. So sometimes, when people receive constructive criticism, it can be easy, when under pressure, for big egos to kick in and turn it in to a personal criticism. Managing relationships across the whole team is a challenge that is important to step up to. Generally, our relationships with suppliers are really good. We’ve tried hard to learn how to manage them well because they can help give us a competitive advantage. We’ll see if the effort pays off on the track in Tokyo 2020.
not just differently but also things that have never been done before. For example, the team’s head of research and innovation used to be the team principal for Jaguar Formula One. That’s the person we use to make connections with new suppliers, to be able to do things ahead of other nations, like sourcing carbon fibre parts. An example from my time in New Zealand is using equipment to measure the distances between bikes traveling in close convoy, which involved attaching lasers to the back of each bike. The relationships that those guys brought to the party were pretty amazing. The team’s ‘supply managers’ must be in constant communication with suppliers to make sure materials and technology are ready for every staging post in the team’s development – and suppliers must be willing to go the extra mile. An example is our shoe supplier based in New York which has sent someone to look at the riders personally and gather relevant data, rather than subcontracting it out.
ensures suppliers – especially the ones relatively new to the industry – understand our deadlines and what our expectations are around the development, production and delivery of goods. As in any field it’s not perfect and occasionally things don’t always go to plan. When this happens, we are careful not to over-react and focus on learning and applying lessons to make things better next time. There are plenty of occasions when suppliers have pulled out all the stops to meet deadlines with their technology, including a supplier which delivered carbon fibre components to the Olympic Village while they were still warm out of the moulds. But suppliers do not only innovate to help with the performance of the bike and the rider. They can also boost efficiency across the whole team. When I was a coach with the New Zealand cycle team, it struggled to get its bikes shipped around the world because of the country’s remoteness. The team might require 50 or 60 items of luggage between six riders and staff. We found shipping suppliers who were prepared to form a partnership with the team. To ease logistical problems, the company developed new fibreglass cases that were specifically designed to pack equipment more effectively and fit into the small aircraft and shipping containers. It helped keep equipment safe and costs down.
Suppliers in constant contact With suppliers in such a high-
pressure sport, developing personal relationships is essential. There is an understanding that they are at the other end of the phone and we’re talking to humans, not robots, which
2019 GLOBAL SRM RESEARCH REPORT
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