Towards happy administration and leadership in a sports club : a design thinking approach to study the member experience with the Olympic Committee’s Suomisport

There are nearly 500,000 volunteers in 10,000 sports clubs in Finland. The need to even the administrative workload in them is evident. Suomisport as of today has 85 sports federations and 130 sports. The aim is to develop Suomisport to support everyday sports life of one million Finns. The aim of this thesis was to study how the Finnish Olympic Committee’s Suomisport sports club service would improve the everyday sport life experience in a sports club. Furthermore, the aim was to describe which digital services a badminton clubs need to operate in today’s world with increasing demands. The leadership experience and communication challenges were also studied. A literature review established the basis for the theoretical part of this thesis. The theoretical framework was developed around design thinking elements: co-design, empathy and member experience. Moreover, the theories covered communication, leadership and change management. Secondary data was acquired through various surveys and reports. Action research and a design thinking approach of this thesis might provide insights for the Finnish Olympic Committee to develop Suomisport even more attractive to the sports clubs in Finland. Various qualitative research methods, interviews and surveys, were used. The following (service) design thinking methods were used to gather information and to gain insights: a stakeholder map, a business model canvas, a service safari, an online ethnography, cultural probes, a persona, a customer journey map and a service blueprint. SWOT analysis and benchmarking, widely known in business research were also included. The Suomisport sports club service pilot enabled the co-designing together with 15 sports clubs. As a result, the badminton club’s processes were described demonstrating opportunities to improve everyday sports life with Suomisport. The results could be used as a benchmarking example to the sports clubs throughout Finland in a comparable situation. The conclusion of this thesis was that emphasis is required to increase the sense of belonging through enabling communal dialogue in the sports club community. There is an exciting potential in the Suomisport sports club service to be developed into a leading solution to support the everyday sports life among the sportspeople. Its MyData approach provides Suomisport a unique advantage as compared to other similar services