01. The Challenge
The 2020 Olympics’ footprint was initially projected to considerably increase the demand on existing services and infrastructure in Japan, and the organisation of the Tokyo Olympics required coordinating a number of delivery partners from public and private sector industries, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Japan National Government, emergency services, health authorities, private companies and more.
Given Ikosaeder’s vast combined experience in major programme delivery, we were therefore aware of the importance of designing and implementing a robust Operational Readiness strategy for a high-profile international event with visibility like no other: in 2016, the Rio Olympics generated a global TV audience of 3.2 billion; 25,000+ accredited media; 7 billion views of official Olympic content on social media; 270 digital media platforms; 75 billion Twitter impressions and 1.5 billion Facebook interactions. Tokyo 2020 was projected to top 2016 figures already without even considering its postponement to 2021.
In 2017, we began providing a range of consulting services to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Organising Committee (OCOG) to support their efforts in the preparation of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. In parallel, following three years of research on the potential of VR for Operational Readiness, recommending Intel, an IOC Marketing Partner as an ideal delivery partner, we suggested a VR pilot project to explore the benefits and scalability of this technology for Readiness and learning.