LOCOG’s ambition for London 2012 is to deliver a unique Games experience for everybody involved. And the number and variety of people involved is vast, from athletes and spectators in Olympic venues to the officials on the field of play and behind the scenes, the press and broadcast media, dignitaries and VIPs and the global viewing public, as well as those living in local communities.

Project deliverables

Deloitte was asked by LOCOG to help identify and define each of their “client” groups and then map the step-by-step journey they would go on through their London 2012 experience and beyond.

These maps establish the various activities along the journey and the LOCOG functional areas that would provide the services at each stage.

For each client group a series of objectives were outlined, to define the experience LOCOG wanted them to have on their London 2012 journey, which in turn underpinned the planning of services for the group.

Each map takes into account the wide range of essential services and functions required to run an Olympic and Paralympic Games, from front of house services like catering, transport and activities on the field of play, to less visible services such as those associated with press and media operations, logistics, security, medical services and the technology to enable results management, accreditation and so on.

LOCOG’s challenge

The vision for London 2012 is to use the power of the Games to inspire change – change in people’s lives, change in sport and change in how the Games are regarded the world over.  Most of all, London aspires to deliver a Games like never before, a Games which motivates people from all walks of life to get involved and which also leaves a lasting legacy for London and the rest of the UK. 

The challenge for LOCOG is therefore to provide a remarkable client experience for each of its stakeholder groups.  And to do this it had to understand thoroughly each of the many London 2012 client journeys, recognising the different aspirations of each client group, in order to design and deliver their services in the most suitable way.

What Deloitte did

Deloitte put together a team to begin answering the key questions around what the client journey through to London 2012 should look and feel like.

People from our consulting practice worked alongside a member of LOCOG’s Strategy and Programme Management team to map the journeys for nine client groups, including athletes, spectators, workforce, marketing partners and communities. 

Interviews were performed with LOCOG’s client group owners and other staff with direct experience either as a client of a Games or as employees of previous organising committees. Interviewees were asked what the assumptions and requirements of different client groups were around service levels, and also for examples of where their experience had been particularly positive or negative at a Games or other comparable major events. We also spoke to a number of customer experience specialists at a variety of venues and were able to draw on the experiences of our own Global Athletes’ Network – a group of over 450 past and present elite athletes, Olympians, Paralympians and coaches who work for Deloitte around the world – to build the broadest view possible of how the Games experience might be enhanced. 

Client group workshops followed, where LOCOG staff were asked to verify the high level client journeys, and generate creative ideas for how LOCOG and their partners could deliver a distinctive and memorable client experience.

The outputs from the workshops – which included over 750 innovative ideas – were developed and the final deliverable was a client journey map for each client group with the recommended ‘experiential objectives’ for each group, aligned to the vision and brand values for the Games.

Impact on the Games

This project will touch every client of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games. It has taken the London 2012 vision of delivering a unique experience and a world class Games one step further. LOCOG will not only provide an effective and efficient client experience, it is now able to consider a range of additional measures to make that experience even more positive.

A client mapping exercise on a programme of such a scale, to this level of detail, with a client group of such diversity and with such varied experiences is a unique undertaking. As a result, LOCOG now has with a clear view of the blueprint for each client group’s experience, and its functional areas have begun building these aspirations into their client engagement strategy and service level design plans.

The knowledge and experience gained in this assignment has also been used to inform several future projects including LOCOG’s aspirations for the food and catering offer at the Games (see our sustainable food and catering case study elsewhere on this site).