The SAP-NHL Front Office App for iPad: Real-Time, Data-Driven Decisions On the Go
In the NHL, decisions off the ice are just as critical as the plays on it. From trades to contracts to long-term planning, each front office is responsible for shaping its team’s future while keeping pace with a fast-moving, competitive League. Just as in business, success depends on turning data into informed, timely decisions that drive results.
Founded in 1917, the National Hockey League (NHL) is comprised of 32 Clubs located across North America. It serves a global fan base of nearly 700 million annual spectators across in-arena, broadcast, and digital channels. With millions of fans worldwide watching and Clubs fighting for any edge they can find, the NHL needed a future-focused way to manage critical decisions shaping the game.
To develop, maintain, and grow a roster within the salary cap system’s guidelines is no small undertaking, especially given the numerous variables that change in real time. While instituting the salary cap helps maintain evenly balanced teams that deliver thrilling games, it also contributes to a complex front-office balancing act, where every potential trade or player acquisition poses a mind-numbing array of opportunities and complications, short and long term.
Across the League, Clubs develop their own roster-management approaches, each using different tools and resources. No matter the variations among the solutions, they were mainly labor-intensive, disconnected systems, which meant that teams did not necessarily have access to real-time data, let alone reliable data, or an efficient means to access and analyze the data they did have.
The NHL, however, had a vision—a unified system that would consolidate player and League data into one platform accessible to all Clubs.
The SAP-NHL Front Office App for iPad delivers on that vision by providing a centralized view of the League, down to the team level, and drilling further into player data, enabling front offices to make more informed, real-time decisions with greater accuracy and efficiency.
First steps: consolidation and collaboration
Before the League could make that vision a reality, several obstacles needed to be resolved, starting with what Chris Foster, VP of Digital Business Development at the NHL, described as the League’s primary pain point: disconnected, legacy data management systems. Pascal Bornet, AI and automation expert, applauded this approach, advising organizations to “start with the friction points.”
Phase one, Foster explained, was “really updating our backend,” consolidating all the League’s data, from contract to salary information, and combining it with player statistics and video clips on SAP HANA Cloud.
Armed with a new database that would provide a seamless, fully connected single source of information for every NHL Club, the League was ready for its next challenge: creating a digital front-office solution that would meet the needs of 32 entirely different front offices, each with their own systems, priorities, “use cases, day-to-day responsibilities, and current challenges with data or workflows,” Foster explained.
The key to developing the League’s new application, Foster said, was leveraging “design-thinking principles” and “authentic user feedback” to create a single solution that would offer real added value to each user, from GMs to analysts to administrators, on each NHL team.
A power play digital solution
That disciplined, user-centered approach, combined with the NHL’s diligent attention to data consolidation, enabled the League to launch its SAP-NHL Front Office App for iPad in record time. While not mandatory, the app quickly proved its value and was rapidly adopted by all 32 Clubs.
The app has already transformed day-to-day operations for Clubs, thanks to its ability to seamlessly access and interpret a single, reliable, and interconnected source of information on three different levels. The broadest level, the league view, offers data across the entire NHL, including current and projected salary caps for each club, off-season scenarios, and draft pick conditions; the team view breaks down the contracts of each player on the roster and provides visual cues for free agents or injured players; and the player view displays bios, contract PDFs, no-trade clauses, waiver status, performance bonuses, and even video clips of game highlights for every player in the League.
As Bornet said, “It’s about the right data, instantly and everywhere.” By rethinking the process first and prioritizing user needs, the League created a foundation for change—one that keeps “humans firmly in command” and uses technology to “amplify judgment, not replace it,” Bornet added.
Foster attributed the new app’s resounding success to the processing power of SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), which enables club-specific customizations and allows for real-time calculations to fuel mission-critical decision-making.
Playing the long game
The NHL and SAP have a long-standing technology partnership that has powered several League-wide innovations, including NHL.com/Stats, the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights App, and NHL Venue Metrics. The Front Office App builds on this foundation and represents the next phase of the League’s digital transformation.
While the Front Office App is currently helping each NHL Club shape its team’s future, the League is continuing to look ahead. “This is a project with a multi-year road map,” Foster said.
As the NHL continues its innovation journey, it will remain laser-focused on user experience. Foster advised those looking to undertake their own digital transformation to take a page from the NHL’s playbook: “Let go of preconceived notions and realign your priorities according to user feedback. Be adaptable. Be fluid.” And get excited, because “the possibilities really are limitless.”
That same approach, Bornet added, “applies far beyond Hockey.” The NHL’s emphasis on identifying friction points and applying user-first design offers a practical template for any organization managing complex constraints and real-time decisions. Across industries, the challenge is the same: “too much data, too many variables, and decisions that can’t wait.” The real breakthrough, he noted, “isn’t the technology itself—it’s a mindset shift,” from “adding AI” to “removing cognitive friction,” and from “building for power users” to “designing for actual users.”
Explore the episode, focused on the customer journey
Learn more about how the NHL engineered a game-changing, League-wide digital transformation:
- Thought leadership podcast: Foster and Bornet talk with Thulium CEO Tamara McCleary about the untapped power of data, when it’s reliable, connected, and accessible, and how the NHL went from inspiration to iteration with the end users being essential to the transformation.
- Practitioners’ video: Foster talks with me about the process of creating a mobile app that meets the needs of 32 distinct front offices, each with their own systems, use cases, day-to-day responsibilities, and priorities.
For five seasons on demand, visit url.sap/btpcustomerconversations.
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Timo Elliott is vice president and global innovation advocate for SAP BTP at SAP.
