SAP is a proud technology partner of both the Medibank Melbourne Marathon and Can4Cancer’s initiative with Tour de Cure, both sponsorship initiatives we share with our customers – Medibank and Commonwealth Bank. These are marketing partnerships that align to SAP’s mission to make the world run better and improve people’s lives – improving people’s health and well-being through technology.
For the Medibank Melbourne Marathon, SAP utilised 40 years of historical data and it revealed more than race times. The data told us a story about ourselves and the changes in Australian society in terms of wellness. Better health is of course of major interest to our customer Medibank.
- 7,238 runners finished the Melbourne Marathon in 2018, whereas 1,947 Runners finished in 1978.
- 42 countries were represented in 2018.
- The largest age group was the 40-44 category.
- The average pace for the full marathon has increased for both men and women over the past 10 years.
This data reveals that we are a more diverse nation, we continue to be physically active as we age, and that we are focused on improving our health and well-being. Finding innovative ways to use technology to enhance our lifestyles and standards of living is crucial in a connected and digitally powered world.
If Health is Wealth, then Data is Key
The key to engaging health and well-being strategies is data. SAP Analytics and SAP Cloud Platform transforms the engagement of athletes, runners and cyclists alike, by accessing individual and aggregate data to generate insights.SAP’s sponsorship of the Tour de Cure initiative with the Commonwealth Bank presented the opportunity to enhance rider engagement using insights formed around recognition and rider participation.
This meant providing a variety of performance statistics like power, cadence, suffer score, speed, and altitude to reinforce the benefits of participating in the ride. Working with Strava as a data source, SAP pulled data into an Intelligent Platform to provide insights after the completion of the ride and to award prizes based on this data. On the second day of the ride, athletes rode together over 10 times up the Everest Mountain and spent over 400 hours in the saddle.
The Medibank Melbourne Marathon and the Tour de Cure initiative elucidate streamlined organisational goals, but also a global movement in health and well-being. The global workplace wellness industry has an estimated worth of $43 billion and organisations see the value in investing in the health and well-being of their employees to ensure a holistic approach to a work-life balance and to encourage optimal productivity. Encouraging health and well-being, in the workplace and beyond, is part of FIT@SAP initiatives and just one of the reasons why SAP is a Great Place to Work.
Align Your Organisational Goals with Technology
Partnering with the Medibank Melbourne Marathon and with Commonwealth Bank in the Can4Cancer initiative with Tour de Cure was an opportunity to align with our customers’ goals and to give back to people in the wider community. SAP technologies like SAP Analytics, SAP Cloud Platform, and SAP HANA were just some innovations leveraged for these events, allowing us to be one step closer to helping the world run better.
