COVID-19 forces LaLiga to set up virtual office

Article posted by Coliseum, April 6^th, 2020

Image: MJR Group Ltd./Coliseum

With COVID-19 wreaking havoc the world over, the men’s top professional football division of the Spanish football league system – LaLiga – is employing its remote working tools globally.

‘The La Liga Newsletter’ stated that the collaborative work tools used in LaLiga’s online working plan are available to the clubs.

As COVID-19 is causing health emergency and causing ravage worldwide, global sports events have come to a grinding halt which has necessitated an abrupt change in the working styles. Across LaLiga, the virtual office has become the new normal and through the league’s technology platforms, the competition and its clubs can maintain productivity.

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‘The La Liga Newsletter’ further informed that LaLiga launched its Digitalízate (‘Digitalize Yourself’) program this season, an initiative that has been given a shot in the arm to enable the daily remote working for the more than 500 LaLiga employees and 42 LaLiga clubs.

“LaLiga employees are maintaining their work rhythm in a time in which competitive football isn’t taking place. There are many projects that we have underway and that must continue to progress as planned,” explains Jose Carlos Franco, Technology Director at LaLiga.

“LaLiga employees are well versed in using these tools and now that they are in regular use, we can ensure that everyone continues to be connected and able to work from home until the end of the health emergency.”

Based on Microsoft technology, this online technology program reached out to the 42 LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank clubs. Irrespective of whether they have a current Microsoft license, all clubs can use the tools. By signing up, users have the chance to use tools such as Office 365 E1 and Teams for free for the next six months.

Featuring historic clubs such as Deportivo La Coruña, Málaga CF and Real Zaragoza and some of the most exciting young players in world football, LaLiga’s second division, now named LaLiga SmartBank, commands a large audience both inside and outside of Spain.

‘The La Liga Newsletter’ added that in particular, Microsoft Teams is LaLiga’s chosen virtual hub for its remote workforce, facilitating working groups to chat, meet, make calls, and form alliances in a single location.

The user guides have already been prepared and shared with clubs, while training sessions have been offered in sync with Microsoft to help clubs that are keen on adopting these collaborative work tools and maintain productivity.

“In the same way that our colleagues are working with these tools, we want employees of LaLiga clubs to have everything at their disposal so they don’t have to stop their activities,” remarked Minerva Santana, Director of Innovation, Strategy and Technological Transformation of LaLiga.

“These productivity and collaboration tools support communication processes in secure environments that will be very useful to us all at this moment in time,” added Santana.

Minerva Santana will speak on Venue Technology at the Coliseum Summit Europe, to be held at Ascot Racecourse in UK on September 2-3, 2020. Apart from her, Juan Iraola of Real Sociedad, Spain, and Iñigo Bonilla – Head of Innovation GSIC powered by Microsoft, Spain, will also hold forth on the topic – Venue Technology – at the conference.

Spain is one of the European countries to be hard hit by novel coronavirus. The coronavirus cases for Spain stand at 131,646 and the death toll is 12,641 till date.

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