SBC News Crispin Nieboer - William Hill - Building effective industry innovation

Crispin Nieboer – William Hill – Building effective industry innovation

crispin
Crispin Nieoboer

Having set up its technology and innovation hub in London’s Shoreditch district, William Hill has outlined product independence combined with in-house development and innovation competencies as its key corporate values which will lead future growth for its business.

Team SBC spoke to Director of Corporate Development & Innovation Crispin Nieboer one of the operators key leaders on innovation on how William Hill aims to reshape and create effective innovation for the sports betting and igaming industries.

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SBC:  Hi Crispin, thanks for the interview, can you detail why William Hill has taken this unique approach and organisational set-up to creating and developing innovation through a strategic hub?

CN: Typically, larger companies focus on maintaining their core business and find it hard to prioritise innovation above other shorter-term wins.  Innovations can have lower profit margins at first and pay off in the long term. Additionally, the people who are good at operating the core business can be different from the ones that you need to generate disruptive models. One successful policy adopted in other sectors is to separate out the disruptive entity, protect it, and let it operate by a different set of rules than the core business.

SBC: As one of the leaders of the innovation project you have focused on developing with new ventures and outside parties. Why is this necessary to the success of your projects and what has William Hill gained by taking on board these partnerships?

CN: To deliver success we need to continue to collaborate with the very best partners in the industry, who can bring something different to our currently available skill set, or who can provide unique IP, or some other USP that will drive us ahead faster. We aren’t so arrogant as to believe that all the best ideas will come from within. We’re open to forming creative partnerships with third parties that incentivise both sides for the long term.

SBC: For major/legacy operators there is now a strong focus on omni-channel services delivery to consumers, how is this affecting product development and strategy implementation?

CN: The omni-channel opportunity for us is huge with over 2,360 shops and 2.8m active customers online. We are looking at all the areas you would expect from payments to customer recognition, trading, gaming, mobile etc. This is why omni-channel is one of the six categories in our accelerator and SBC readers can find out more by watching a video from our Omni-Channel Development Director, Mike Jones, explaining the opportunity at WilliamHillLabs.com.

SBC: In your opinion how has a convoluted and outsourced operational value chain affected innovation development in igaming and sports betting? Can operators really develop under these conditions?

CN: Many operators have suffered or even failed by trying to do everything themselves in-house, meaning that they have a heavy permanent tech cost with a longer time to market. They don’t always make the right priority or technology calls, either. Others have suffered by being too dependent on suppliers who have not maintained their competitive positioning or who have not been able to grow and evolve with their key customers. We believe there are some areas where it is right to outsource and others where it is better to build in-house, depending on your skill set and business maturity. With the right suppliers and the right technical architecture, this hybrid approach should drive innovation and time to market, rather than hinder it.

SBC: 2015 has been a year of corporate acquisition and consolidation, in your opinion has the importance of industry innovation been put to the side?

CN: I don’t think so. Of course, cost synergies have been the main driver of many of the acquisitions we’ve seen in the industry, but there are also acquisitions being made to acquire specific IP, technology and skills sets when businesses think that these are easier/better to acquire than try to build in-house. I would single out Paddy Power as another operator that is making an overt effort to prioritise in-house, organic innovation. Others may be doing it, but they are not talking about it!

SBC: Finally what are your long term ambitions and goals for the William Hill development hub?

CN: Across our internal teams, third-party collaborations and growing technical platform “enablers”, we are looking to lead the market in delivering enjoyable and memorable experiences that our customers love and trust, and, through this, increase value and differentiation over the long term.

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Crispin Nieboer – Director of Corporate Development & Innovation 

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