How We Helped GB Taekwondo Overcome Their IT Challenges

We work with a range of organisations to deliver award-winning business IT support and we’re proud to say that one of our clients is GB Taekwondo.

This is their story.

Success Breeds Success

Established in 2002, British Taekwondo has evolved from a grassroots organisation to a professional and highly successful institution.

With a range of programmes available for both up-and-coming and proven stars, the organisation has 20 athletes living in Manchester and training out of the GB Taekwondo academy at the Ten Acres Sports Complex in East Manchester.

Responsible for preparing and managing British athletes to compete on the world stage, GB Taekwondo provides World Class Performance and Talent Pathway programmes to help athletes be their best.

As an international team, GB Taekwondo athletes compete at the biggest sporting events around the world including the Olympic Games and the World and European Championships.

To make all this happen, the organisation employs 23 people in a range of roles including back office administration, events organisation and coaching roles.

With the delivery of a programme of major events also on their to-do list, GB Taekwondo need to be at the top of their game.

The Challenge

With so much riding on their ability to collaborate in order to deliver significant events, GB Taekwondo’s IT systems were of paramount importance.

Although the team was used to thinking and working in a joined up way, their IT systems weren’t. And with colleagues working around the globe, the technology needed to be able to deal with the most extreme version of remote working.

However, GB Taekwondo’s office systems were completely separate to those used at events making it difficult to access, download, amend and save documents to a single location.

The team was also struggling to cope with the vast amounts of data they needed to store. In order to try and provide a workaround, data was held on portable hard drives.

Managing costs was also key to the institution and international calls were placing a strain on budgets.

All told, GB Taekwondo knew they needed a flexible, cost-effective IT solution to help them provide the world-class support their athletes deserve.

‘San-iT balance being both professional and approachable at the same time.  We have been working with them for several years now and think of them as an extension of our organisation’

Matt Archibald, GBTKD CEO,

Our Black Belt Solution

When GB Taekwondo approached us, we knew we could help. With a range of products at our fingertips we just needed to understand which would combine to produce the best overall solution.

We recommended moving GB Taekwondo’s documents, files and data storage online by upgrading their Office 365 Education plan to include SharePoint and OneDrive.

A GB Taekwondo branded SharePoint enabled the team to create a secure online location to store and share documents. With storage in the cloud, the team can access their documents from anywhere in the world.

By giving every member of staff their own OneDrive (each with 1TB of space), documents, photos, images, screenshots and videos could all be stored and accessed online. That’s enough room for around two million photos or 500 feature length films so no-one’s about to run out of space any time soon!

The addition of the business social networking software, Yammer, helped employees to communicate more easily with one another. Implemented with training support, the team was quickly up and running and sharing news and information with each other.

Skype also meant the team could keep in touch more easily. By installing this software on all devices, colleagues can keep in touch using instant messaging and internet video calling to minimise international phone bills.

Skype’s seamless integration with the rest of the IT solution means a coach can video an athlete’s performance on their mobile device, save it to their OneDrive and share it with colleagues or the athlete themselves.

A Gold Medal Performance

Wherever in the world they are, staff can now access joined-up systems and share data and documents with the comfort of enhanced cloud security.

Colleagues, athletes and coaches are also able to access and collaborate on files in real time on any device from any location. All data is centralised and the team can keep control of documents and data thanks to the permissions that have been set for team members and athletes.

Today, good news travels fast as staff can instantly message via Skype and share stories, post relevant news articles or research via Yammer. It also helps the team ask questions and find solutions more quickly than before. The introduction of this technology combination has been a game-changer for GB Taekwondo.

Now, no matter where the team is working, they can operate as one unit and provide their athletes with everything they need for a gold-medal performance.

For Manchester business IT support that delivers world-class flexible working, contact SAN-iT on 0161 359 3689 or at info@san-it.co.uk.