Formula One is seen by many people as being the most exciting and dynamic industry in the world. IBM has had a close involvement with many Formula 1 teams over the past decade or so, providing the most advanced hardware and software technology solutions, as well as business consulting and technology implementation services.

So what really makes F1 different to other industries? What is exciting about the industry is often also the most frustrating. Dealing with the big egos can be daunting and challenging. There is often an inherent unwillingness to follow any kind of process (I realise many businesses would lay claim to that dubious honour), but I suppose in F1 it is down to the fact that most of the key figures come from a very hands-on engineering background, a "prototyping heritage" if you will. The teams tend to have a high reliance on the great skills of their key engineers with little or no knowledge capture or management of their know-how. The principal business challenge for the F1 teams remains simply to develop, manufacture, race and win the fastest car on the grid, within the FIA rules, and like all other businesses they need to do this while keeping their costs lower than their income. It is without doubt a very tough environment to exist in. There is such clear visibility of the performance of their business - every race weekend for a couple of hundred million people to see!

It has to be said that the nature of the consulting and services work IBM has delivered historically to the F1 teams has often been technology led, with process and methodology advice tagged on to significant implementations of various Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software applications such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Product Data Management (PDM) systems. There has however recently been a trend shifting away from a pure technology focus to something of an understanding by the F1 Teams that they must focus much more clearly on how they use their chosen technology to transform their business, rather than which application is most functionally rich. One reason for this shift is certainly that there is less money floating around Formula 1 since the end of tobacco sponsorship, therefore the focus has definitely moved from "innovation at any cost", to a point where even the bigger teams are more aware of budgets and costs. Having said that, innovation remains the absolute key to success in Formula 1. The team that wins is almost always the team that innovates the fastest. We in IBM of course pride ourselves on being the "innovation enablers", so the synergy between IBM and Formula 1 is a good one. Another catalyst for change in Formula 1 is that there is a creeping awareness that good business processes can help performance on the track as well as on the balance sheet. Investing in the best technology is one thing, but if it is not used effectively by the business then the return on investment will not be realised. So again IBM has a great deal to offer Formula 1 teams.

IBM's latest innovation in the business of high speed product development is the "Product Development Integration Framework" or PDIF, which represents a new approach in combining the value of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) IT approach, with the ecosystems of PLM software products that the F1 teams commonly use. The key objective is to develop ideal business processes, supported by an independent IT architecture, exposed to the business through web-services. This will enable business flexibility and agility, allowing changes to IT to be made without stifling speed, creativity, innovation and the passion for the sport. That's the challenge!

Want to know more about F1 and IBM? Send an email or call +44 1926 464668.