Documenting the digital Olympics

Sponsors Fuji Xerox will be a driving force behind the Games. DITA DE BONI reports.

Vince Schaeffer runs 10km a day. But he has no doubt the most vital performance will be that of the 3000-odd Fuji Xerox machines supplied to the Olympic Games as part of a sponsorship package.

After years of moving from venue to venue,setting up and dismantling Fuji Xerox's roving Olympics support company, American-born Mr Schaeffer still gets a buzz out of overseeing the vast documentation of the Games from whoa to go.

He has already been in Sydney for three years - "a year and a half planning, a year and a half testing" - and so far 2000 machines are installed and ready to roll, along with mountains of paper, ink, machinery parts and other essentials stored in a nearby warehouse.

"What continues to motivate me is the complexity and time-frame of the task," he says.

"Many people forget that the Olympics involves setting up and dismantling the equivalent of a Fortune 500 company, all for just a 17-day event."

Fuji Xerox, an unconsolidated entity jointly owned by US-based Xerox and Japan's Fuji Photo Film, has been involved with the Olympic Games since 1964. Operating mainly in the Pacific Rim, the company has yearly turnovers of over $US8 billion and more than 30,000 employees.

But despite being one of the world's biggest document solution providers, Fuji Xerox is still struggling to overcome a commercial image of a "photocopier and fax" company. Mr Schaeffer admits the contract with the Olympics is a way of showing the world that "we are also the meat behind the copier/fax company - we are a digital document company."

Of the "soft" benefits of sponsoring the Olympic Games, he says, "doors in companies have been opened down here that previously may not have been," there is access to senior people, hospitality opportunities and other schmoozing-related perks. Perhaps those benefits go some way to compensate corporatesand partners for not having their logos on display in the stadiums.

The actual value of the company's commitment to the Games has increased each year, although figures are not disclosed. But it is known that machinery worth $220 million will be provided in 2000 in a "value in kind" sponsorship.

In the case of the Sydney Games and as part of the sponsorship package, Fuji Xerox has provided an inhouse digital printing (called the d-Print) centre for Games organising committee officials, which a source says gets used more frequently as the committee's budget gets tighter.

In addition to the 3000-plus pieces of machinery, Fuji Xerox also provides software and 200 technicians to oversee operations at 37 separate competition venues.

All Olympic corporate partners still pay for their own tickets to events, their corporate boxes and all accommodation and transport in Sydney - items several company sources said they had initially been surprise at.

There was also anxiety about "the sheer number of things needed. We had to go outside Australia to call in resources from other Asia-Pacific countries," says Mr Schaeffer.

He says digital technology has been vital to the upcoming Games, largely because there has been a boom in the number of athletes and support people taking part, but also because Australia is not the United States.

"The Olympics in Atlanta were very US-centric - we could get everyone and everything we needed internally."

There are many areas in which the Sydney Olympics represents a first, even for Fuji Xerox.

It is the first games which is 100 per cent digital (which doesn't mean results will not be printed on paper, but does mean they will be documented and distributed using digital technology).

The company has been given permission to print some of the results of competitions onto CDs for distribution to media and other organisations, and Mr Schaeffer says it would like to see much more use of electronic archives and web-based retrieval systems.

"There is a migration [that way] but it is not going at break-neck speed. Every country participating has a different level of advancement, so you can't just wholesale implement the latest technology," he says.

Despite the task's Olympian proportions, Mr Schaeffer says the company views the Games as a major part of its marketing programme, and it is one of the few events the company backs in a global forum.

"It's hard to say how much we've sold because of the Olympics, because we're still negotiating a lot of business. But there is no doubt that it enhances our image that we are reliable and easy to use, and takes us beyond what we are normally known for."

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