Commentary: Big data in your World Cup

   The day after Germany secured its first World Cup triumph in 24 years, the German software giant SAP tweeted a story about how its HANA database technology had helped the German team win on soccer’s biggest stage.
   Behind the scenes, SAP has been assisting the German team refine its strategy by giving coaches and players access to millions of data points about their own performance and that of their opposition. It’s big data put into practice. Analytics like these have permeated American sports for more than a decade in baseball and basketball. Michael Lewis’ now famed tome Moneyball captured this movement in great detail.
   But as I read about how Germany’s game plan was shaped by greater access to data, I thought back to the World Cup Final that I had watched 16 hours earlier. Despite Germany being a well-drilled machine, filled with technically sound players moving with precision for two hours, the game was won because Argentina missed three pretty good scoring opportunities, while Germany took one of their few opportunities.
    What makes soccer and other fluid sports so dynamic is that one person can either make or break the game for his team. In the defining moment of the World Cup Final, the German goal scorer broke into space behind the vision of Argentina’s defender. He then executed a brilliant maneuver to chest the ball onto his left foot and lashed it into the net for the win.
   SAP may have helped the German players think about being in the right place at the right time, but the vision to see where the pass was headed, and the skills needed to execute the move were outside the pattern of the rest of the game.
   What does this have to do with logistics and transportation? Big data can help you put the right assets in the right position, but the open road and seas are the ultimate dynamic playing field. Sometimes, it takes a moment of brilliance to transform knowledge of patterns into the execution of something even more special.

This commentary was published in the August 2014 issue of American Shipper.