Every Olympic Games is a special event, and Beijing 2008 promises to be one of the biggest and most special yet, posing a raft of challenges and opportunities to the organizers of the event.

"Our involvement in the Olympics is key to our long-term development in Asia," says Simon Yim, President of Atos Origin China. "In China, it’s very important to have a clear brand, and so we look forward to using the Olympic Games as an opportunity to launch aggressive advertising and public relations initiatives."

And making sure the IT systems work flawlessly for Beijing 2008, quite possibly the biggest Olympics ever in the world’s most populous country, will present considerable challenges. As Jeremy Hore, Chief Integrator at Atos Origin for Beijing 2008 explains: "The scale is going to be much bigger than what we have seen before in terms of numbers of volunteers and venues. For example, events will be hosted in 6 other cities outside Beijing, including Hong Kong which will hold equestrian events. This increases the complexity of the project."

The other major challenge is to adapt to the cultural differences of executing this project in Beijing which will involve working with new technology partners. “The key to our success in Beijing," Jeremy continues, “is being able to transfer the knowledge we have captured in previous games, and at the same time customize some of our solutions to meet the special requirements of a new host city."

Team China

Not surprisingly, preparations for the Summer 2008 games are well underway, and Atos Origin already has a team of 17 working on the ground in five main teams covering: Integration, Technical Services, Operations, Security and Quality.

The team includes several Chinese staff who were involved in the preparations for Athens 2004, and this brings invaluable experience and knowledge transfer to the project, as well as improving the team’s ability to communicate effectively with the Beijing Organizing Committee (BOCOG) and other partners.

By the end of 2006, the team in Beijing will consist of around 60 people, including 15 people who worked on Torino 2006 and more than 10 different nationalities. Seven people from the Beijing coordination team are attending the Torino games to ensure that best practices and any lessons learned are swiftly taken on board and applied to Beijing 2008.

While there are still numerous challenges ahead, the Atos Origin team in China has already made significant progress. For example, the complex accommodation system which helps to manage the ongoing accommodation requirements for the thousands of Olympic family members in the years leading up to the Games has already been successfully delivered to BOCOG.

Business benefits

As well as providing the company with the opportunity to deepen and strengthen its partnership with the Olympics, the Beijing Games will provide Atos Origin with invaluable branding and reputation-building possibilities in one of the world’s most exciting marketplaces.

The Olympics have allowed Atos Origin to show in a dramatic fashion that we have the capacity to deliver excellent IT methodology and solutions in project management, that we are able to produce rapid IT deployment and our operational readiness – and customers and potential customers have already taken notice. Our profile has been raised and Atos Origin is being asked to tender for more contracts from companies in the private sector such as banks, manufacturing companies, and from the Beijing government.