The recent Sports Tracker acquisition leads the way to the future where sports equipment and apparel merge with the Internet of things. Sports Tracker is a digital accelerator for Amer Sports brands, says business unit director Marko Orenius.
Marko Orenius is the business unit director for digital services in Amer Sports. He is responsible for developing digital sports services and their extensions, like biometrics and content for all Amer Sports brands.
How would you describe Sports Tracker?
Sports Tracker is the original digital sports tracking service on the market. The name is not just a name, but much more: it makes a statement. Sports Tracker is an excellent company with highly talented people, and of course all of them are sports enthusiasts.
What new skills does Sports Tracker bring to Amer Sports?
We have gained some really important capabilities in the area of mobile application development via the acquisition. I am a big fan of the work they have done in mobile platforms. They have been developing “mobile first” thinking ahead of us. I think that is a great asset.
Are there some special or unique features in the Sports Tracker service?
The world of digital sports services evolves very quickly. You may have a unique feature for a short period of time, but competing services will follow soon. I think the most important features are the loyalty and commitment of the Sposports tracker pyöräily 392x263rts Tracker users. That really gives the service an edge.
What is the role of Sports Tracker in Amer Sports?
Sports Tracker is a digital accelerator for Amer Sports brands. We are going to explore different possibilities of how Sports Tracker can work together with other Amer Sports brands like for example Mavic, Salomon and Arc´teryx. We see great potential there. And of course there are a lot of synergies with Suunto.
What other new possibilities does the acquisition of Sports Tracker bring to Amer Sports?
We have brought in a team with years of experience, real insight and a great amount of talent in building digital services. When we combine their skills with our existing teams, we have the best opportunities to build next level digital sports services.
What kind of synergies are there between Sports Tracker and Suunto?
Suunto and Sports Tracker work together as a unified team. We can combine different sorts of digital development like hardware coding and native application development. I think we will see real innovations.
Can you already predict what kind of new services you will develop?
It may be a bit early to define any particular services or applications. But if we look at what the industry is saying about the future, the upcoming embedded digital sensors in sports equipment and apparel will need a service to visualize and interpret that data and give advice to the user.
Everybody is talking about industrial Internet. Will we also see a sports equipment Internet?
I strongly believe in the Internet of things in sports equipment and apparel. That is the future we are facing, and probably veryjuoksu-300 soon.
How big will this new digital market be?
I think the market we should really be looking at is the sports gear and apparel market as a whole. The new digital services will be a natural and integral part of the overall consumer experience. When you buy a jacket for hiking, you expect it has a digital companion to help you make the most out of your experience. In that sense, digitalization will drive the overall growth of the sports market and be a game changer in some sports.
Where does this digitalization of sports equipment start?
As always, there will be early adopters. The majority of them will be urban citizens. In our daily urban lives we try to make the most of our active time. Why should we not buy some metrics and measurement to help us? People are already using digital diaries for their sports activities. The digitalization of equipment and apparel is the natural next phase.
Sports Tracker in figures:
- Founded as a spin-off from Nokia In 2009
- 25 million downloads globally
- Over 2 million monthly active trackers in more than 200 countries