Why You Need Us!

In your Motorsport Career you may have found the success that you sought, or feel that things could have gone better if only...

Hopefully things are going well and your season is in full swing. Irrespective of whether you race at an entirely amateur level or at the highest environs let's be honest; Motorsport is competitive and wherever you compete you are in it to win it. To achieve this you must take a holistic view of your team, its progress and prospects. A fast driver or a fast car are not in themselves a guarantee of success.

Lets think about it logically. In your search for success, at whichever level, it is likely that you will find the time to prepare your car for competition. You may take some driver training at some point to improve your skills. You may coerce friends and family to help out. Higher up the order you may employ people to undertake these roles in a professional capacity for the team.

In all disciplines and levels of Motorsport Business Management is often overlooked in favour of these more direct functions such as upgrades, testing and so on. I cannot argue that these are not important, vital even, to a successful campaign, but then again so is business strategy, goal setting and financial management.

If you are competing then you must at some level have some processes in place for your organisation, have a recruitment/training program and you will have stakeholders, BUT often there is a lack of anything that links it all together in a coherent way (except arguably at or near the elite level). There is little doubt that this will have a serious effect on your chances of success.

In their book 'Total Competition' Ross Brawn and Adam Parr suggest that the strategy of motorsport stands on three legs, all of which are interdependent, and all of which will underpin everything that you hope to achieve. Wherever you finally set the bar for your season, it is vital that you understand that your (perhaps unrecognized) aim is to maximize the lead that you hold over your opponents in each of these three areas. Combined they will form your competitive advantage both on and off the track:

• Technical Advantage - Winning in itself shows that you hold an advantage in this area. This could be due to driver skill, a well prepared car, a well run team or more likely a combination of all of these. This is how you do things.
• Economic Advantage - Winning brings tangible rewards. This may be in the form of prize money or increased sponsorship, but the bottom line, as they say, is that the more successful you are the more resources you will have to improve your team. Beware - the inverse is also true!
• Political Advantage - Winning brings leverage that can be applied to your teams benefit. This may be during commercial negotiations with sponsors, or during technical negotiations with stewards. The more successful that you are the more weight that your voice will carry.

Notwithstanding the above, even if you have never given management of your team a second thought you will have engaged in it. You will have to have made decisions - which competition or events to enter, how much you can afford to spend on your sport and so on. With this being the case, why not take that extra step and actively manage your team and your season? The benefits of this are clear:

• You will be able to set goals to reach what you consider success
• This means that you will be able to set a strategy for your season
• This means that you will be able to plan what you are going to do
• This means that you will have preparation and finances in place so there are no nasty surprises
• This means that you can go out and concentrate on the fun part of racing your car!

Think about other sports. Even at an entirely amateur level you would be surprised if a village football team didn't have a Manager, a Committee and a Treasurer to keep it all ticking over. Why should Motorsport be any different?

Ask yourself, do you actively manage your team from a business perspective, and if not why not? It is never too early, or too late, for your Team to plan for the next race and the next season. Ideally your plans should cover the foreseeable future and beyond...

Delving into the world of management does not have to be too demanding. If you are lacking in this area it will take time to build your processes, just as it takes time to fine tune an engine or get to know a circuit. You can take small steps towards managing your team well, but the time spent will pay dividends.

Equally, just as you might engage specialists to tune or drive your car, should you feel that you lack the experience to undertake management functions within your team it will pay dividends to bring in a consultant who can, even if this is just to set the ball rolling. Even if you have management in place the occasional glance from a neutral eye can often spot gaps that remain unseen from the inside.

Remember, if you take your team management seriously and your competition does not then you already have a competitive advantage over them.

Who knows - Potential sponsors may be very impressed by this….!