Turning a sports data leader's data, product, and services into one compounding advantage.
- Client
- Global sports marketing agency and sports data platform
- Challenge
- Stop churn and turn a fragmented platform into a future-proofed, growing data-centric managed services business
- Engagement
- Deep-dive strategic & technical diagnostic, resulting in a detailed, governed AI-informed roadmap
The client is a global player in sports data and fan engagement, spanning both data-driven marketing and strategy services and a software platform used across the industry by rights holders and brands. Churn was accelerating faster than new business could replace it, as technical debt piled up on the platform and the feature pipeline stalled. Behind a single brand, the platform was really three regional stacks held together by years of workarounds — and most engineering time went to keeping them running, not moving the roadmap forward.
Fourier Partners ran a deep, evidence-based diagnostic across business and technology — the commercial drivers of churn, the state of the platform and its technical debt, and where AI could realistically help — and turned it into one single, prioritized roadmap, sequenced so the business kept running while it was rebuilt.
Evolving a data warehouse into a high-value,
future-proofed insights engine.
Renewals at risk, new logos behind plan
Slow servicing and a thin pipeline of new features were pushing up renewal risk and holding back new-logo growth at the same time. Retention wasn't just a support problem to contain — it was the growth engine the business hadn't switched on.
One brand, but three platforms underneath
The single, unified product clients were sold was really three regional stacks behind the scenes, each on its own foundation and each carrying years of technical debt. Collapsing them into one platform and one data model was the unlock everything else depended on.
Engineering stuck firefighting, not building
Most engineering effort went to keeping the lights on and fielding one-off requests, leaving only a fraction for the roadmap. The capacity to compete already existed inside the team — it just had to be freed from maintenance and pointed at the future.
Two credible AI bets, no way to choose
Leadership had two legitimate AI directions — accelerating today's product, and reinventing how clients use the platform — each with real internal backing and no shared framework to sequence them. The gap wasn't ambition or ideas; it was one prioritized plan both camps could get behind.
Effort converts to
firefighting, not compounding
- Product & UX gaps
- Client friction, churn risk
- Urgent fixes consume capacity
- The roadmap slows
- Product stays incomplete
Diagnosed as one system — business and technology, together.
Churn, technical debt, and two unsequenced AI bets were being treated as separate issues. Fourier examined all three at once — the commercial drivers of churn, the state of the regional stacks, and where AI could realistically pay off — and reconciled them into a single governed roadmap that sequenced the work so the business kept running while it was rebuilt.
- 01 Workstream
Commercial & Operating Model
Churn drivers, right-to-win, governance
- 02 Workstream
Platform & Architecture
Stacks, technical debt, remediation modes
- 03 Workstream
Opportunity Map
Two theses, one prioritization framework
One reconciled diagnosis
A single governed roadmap
Evidence, Not Impression
Every finding was checked against the source evidence — 50+ documents, systems and code repositories, and 40+ stakeholder interviews across six functions in a tight window — and cross-checked thoroughly via humans and proprietary AI tools purpose-built for due diligence.
What Fourier delivered.
Platform & Architecture Diagnosis
Reviewed the platform’s major stacks and technical-debt inventory against a validated risk framework, turning complexity into a prioritized, sequenced fix-it plan.
Commercial & Competitive Assessment
Traced the real drivers of churn and stalled growth from renewal data and interviews, then mapped where each product line can realistically win.
AI Strategy & Opportunity Map
Brought two competing AI theses into one prioritization framework across three horizons — a two-track plan: quick wins now, the deeper rebuild alongside.
Operating Model & Governance
Recommended clear, end-to-end platform accountability and a regular review across roadmap, capacity and go-to-market.
24-Month Transformation Roadmap
Organized every finding into three funding horizons — Stabilize, Modernize, Differentiate — each releasing the capacity that funds the next.
Capacity & Investment Case
Re-balanced the core team and added a time limited delivery partner, with a return case that pays for itself on cost savings alone.
One evidence base. Three horizons. A
roadmap the board could act on.
The diagnostic gave leadership a single, funded plan — and the numbers to defend it.
- ~$2M+ / yr
- Annual run-rate saving identified — the restructuring repays the investment on cost savings alone, before counting any drop in churn.
- 25%
- Engineering productivity gain, measured in the client’s own controlled AI rollout — which is what frees up the engineering time.
- 2.5×
- Engineering redirected from running the platform to building it — from about a quarter of effort today toward two-thirds at steady state.
- 3 → 1
- Three separate regional stacks put on a path to one platform and one data model — the technical foundation the roadmap is built on.
- Platform operations, support & maintenance
- Bespoke custom (moves to services)
- Product roadmap
- Technical debt / architecture modernization
- Innovation (AI, experimentation, prototypes)
- Strategic reserve
- Other (enablement, onboarding, coordination)
| Work | Today | Target steady-state | Best-in-class SaaS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform operations, support & maintenance | 56% | 20% | 15% |
| Bespoke custom (moves to services) | 18% | 0% | 0% |
| Product roadmap | 18% | 42% | 52% |
| Technical debt / architecture modernization | 5% | 10% | 10% |
| Innovation (AI, experimentation, prototypes) | Not labeled | 13% | 10% |
| Strategic reserve | Not labeled | 7% | 8% |
| Other (enablement, onboarding, coordination) | Not labeled | 8% | 5% |
“I get very excited about this, because we've got a real opportunity — based on how early we are in our digital products journey — to truly go down the product route: to leverage our data moat and drive a system of action, not just a system of intelligence. To tangibly drive fan behavior, so the platform isn't just saying 'here's an insight' — it's going ahead and driving it through.”
“I feel confident that this work supports our long-term future.”