GR8 Tech: A product must be comfortable for both operator & player

Profitability. A primary focus for any business, but a concept that is fraught with a range of challenges in ensuring that the correct path is consistently trodden, and that success is ultimately maintained.

While maximising profitability is the ultimate aim, achieving such a feat is far from simple. A key facet of this is ensuring that market demands are consistently met, as well as anticipating the needs of players and markets to create products to meet such requirements.

For Oleksandr Feshchenko, GR8 Tech CRO, the importance of not just keeping in mind, but aligning with, two key stakeholders is of the utmost importance.

“We have two key stakeholders. It’s the player and operator,” he said. “The product must be comfortable for both of them. We accept that the operator knows better than ourselves how the product should look in a particular market. We can’t be experts on all of our markets.

“We compile information from the operators, going through their requests, discussing it with them. Sometimes, we have workshops discussing their plans, and try to manage our product roadmap together.”

Alongside this, Feshchenko also touched on the significance of keeping a close eye on the competition, as well as heightening personalisation techniques, in achieving ultimate ambitions.

“We are trying to be a market leader,” he added. “We want to make trends, not just to follow them, because our big ambition is to be the best sports group provider in the industry.” 

With profitability as the key theme throughout a discussion that was taking place on a bustling London show floor, Feshchenko eagerly noted that it is not simply a case of product, marketing, or retention, but is centred around a combination of these factors.

“In case you have a gap in some of these areas, you can’t make money,” Oleksandr continued. “Sometimes, when you are focusing only on one area or even several of them, you fail because you should guarantee a smooth cooperation between the components of your system.

“Marketing, product retention, payments, and only in this case can you be successful and achieve not just an ordinary result, but exceed it.”  

Switching focus to trading teams specifically, and, without downplaying it, the explosion of betting content firmly in the front of our minds, Feshchenko examined how much more difficult this makes the roles of those in these positions.

“If we’re talking about content, there are two key things that I see now,” he explained. “First of all, looking at big providers of data and content, they are trying to monopolise the market. 

“They are buying rights, they’re competing with each other, and then acting more like legal companies and technology companies, they try to protect the area. But I think it’s usually  impossible to do it fully, and it’s not good for the market. 

“The second thing, there are some disciplines like esports, cricket, and maybe tennis, where there is a lack of content in general. There are not enough events like we have in football or basketball, for example, and other companies are creating synthetic content.”

Maintaining this theme, Feshchenko pointed to liability, pricing, and customer management as key to increasing profits, with the latter singled out for particular importance.

“It’s very careful daily work with clients and risk management to do it in the proper way,” he continued. “In this case, you can make the life of a player comfortable, so they have a very small limit and can win money on the product, and be successful for a long time and be loyal for a long time.

“They could have a long and successful life with the product and they’ll treat it as entertainment, like buying a ticket to a cinema or spending it on a football match. 

“Gambling is just entertainment. It’s not about burning money or trying to solve your problems with money.”

However, when it comes to solutions and strategies that could be utilised to combat potential difficulties, Feshchenko firstly noted that, although this is a tricky situation, it is better to earn the same money with a lower margin than with a huge one.

“It’s all in the instruments, and how the operator will use them depends on the operator. Our way is to provide these instruments,” he explained. “However, sometimes we can also provide expertise in how to manage them, as there is a variety, but you need to use them in a clever way.

“Sometimes, regarding the rate of providing margin management, operators are trying to use it too straightforwardly. If it looks like a business plan for the next month is not completed yet, they think ‘I’ll increase margin and make more money.’ It doesn’t work in such a way, and any experienced player on the market knows it.”  

As the discussion drew to its close, the importance of the role of automation in heightening profitability was brought to the table. As issues previously touched upon, such as margin management, were entered into the discussion once again, Oleksandr also pointed out that “special things for VIP players” and elements of personalisation drive a unique product and experience and are key to player comfort.

“What we do, first of all, is make a product comfortable for a player. It’s not directly about profitability, but it’s about profitability in the long term,” he concluded.