Wimbledon aces upgraded ERP

The All England Lawn Tennis Club has upgraded its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to help with visitor applications for this year's Wimbledon Championships.

The tennis club has updated its system to aid the issuing of debentures for Number 1 Court and will also use wireless ticket reading devices to link to databases.

The Club has revamped Geac's System21 ERP platform to enhance management of debenture certificates, which give corporates and individuals five-year access to Centre or Number 1 Court and Wimbledon's grounds.

Using a new interface, the Club will be able to link debenture owner expenses, such as car parking, more quickly into its electronic accounting systems and issue invoices.

Wireless scanning devices linked to the Club's ticketing database, which sits on an IBM iSeries Model 270, also mean that more visitors can access the top courts at this year's Championships.

"People used to put tickets into red boxes when leaving the courts, which were then manually sorted so that new tickets could be issued," said Jeff Lucas, IT director at The All England Lawn Tennis Club.

The system now scans tickets as people leave the courts, using the database to match pairs of tickets and re-issue and print new ones more quickly for visitors wanting to watch evening matches.

The All England Lawn Tennis Club is also using Geac's System21 to improve balloting and ticket issuing.

By scanning ballot applications from hopeful championship attendees, the Club is able to link information into its ERP system which then speeds up the draw.

A reduction in manual inputting and greater tracking has also helped the Club improve general ledger management and issuing of payment invoices, said Lucas.

"It's been tremendously beneficial from an efficiency point of view," he added.