and the winner is ...

Project

The Win.de Portal AG is a full-service re-seller of state-run lottery offerings, based in Hamburg, Germany.

Building on its success in online and direct marketing of the so-called Klassenlotterie, the company decided to leverage its existing infrastructure – call centre, letter shop, internet presence etc. – and experience to develop a more ambitious “fun and gaming” portal.

Concept

The gaming and gambling marketing is Germany is extremely difficult: Competition is fierce – and includes FLUXX AG, where I spent some years leading the Product Development team; regulation is rife and the state monopoly is currently being contested at state, federal and EU level. In addition, the Monopolies Commission is scrutinising the restrictions applying to re-sellers.

In view of these constraints, Harry Neugebauer, owner and president of win.de Portal AG, developed a vision for a multi-facetted portal offering, which would address all aspects of “fun and gaming”, would support customer loyalty and would leverage the USPs (unique selling points), which win.de could offer. These include ISO 9001:2000 accreditation for the business processes, a huge potential amongst existing customers and – last but by no means least – the ability to provide seamless online/offline support using existing personnel and infrastructure.

The initial responsibility in this project was to explore the implications of the vision, to define the project scope and to create an initial roadmap for implementation.

Following on from that I assumed responsibility for the implementation of an initial version, basically a Lotto-Kiosk supporting the standard range of over-the-counter products. During the implementation, the software supplier was replaced, requiring the identification, training and support of substitute vendors.

Role

The areas where I feel I added value and experience were as follows:
• Detailed definition and scoping of the original vision and preparation of a high-level roadmap.
• Management of the Technical Architecture concept and implementation
• Business Process and Workflow definition
• Input to detailed design
• Coordination and liaison with external partners
• Project planning and estimation

The business, regulatory and legislative environments all changed dramatically shortly before the planned launch, leading to delays. As a result, my involvement ceased some time before the project went live. Some of these issues have since been resolved – at least temporarily – so that first version of the win.de portal is now online at www.win.de.