People must feel they are part of the Games: Paul Deighton
The CEO of the organising committee of the London Olympics, Paul Deighton, says that the Games are all about community bonding.
August 07, 2012 / 12:58 IST
Rani Singh/Forbes India
The CEO of the organising committee of the London Olympics, Paul Deighton, says that the Games are all about community bondingQ: How have you gone about the business of managing London 2012 differently from the way it’s been done before?A: I just set out to do it as well as I possibly could. The key aspect of my leadership philosophy is, first of all, to be crystal clear on what we’re trying to create.Right through this project we’ve adhered very closely to the promises we made in the bid when we won the Games:
1. To use the power of the Games to inspire change.
2. To really put athletes at the heart of what we do - because if athletes are enjoying the experience it transmits itself to all the other people involved.
3. To use it as a showcase for London.
4. To use it to inspire young people to choose sports.Every time we’ve had a big decision to make, we’ve made it against these criteria. Then we’ve been very focused on choosing the right people, getting them to work together as a team, and then really making sure that all the other organisations, both the private sector ones (our sponsors in the main), and the public sector ones - that’s central government, city government, and local borough governments - all work together because we all agree that this is such a wonderful opportunity to make Britain proud.Q What were your biggest management challenges?A: The real management challenge, of course, is that this is an extraordinarily large and complicated project with a scope that can only really become clear several years into the project, when you really understand the detail of what has to be delivered. And managing all that within a constrained budget in difficult economic times against a background of an immoveable deadline - we knew the opening ceremony had to start on July 27, 2012 - and doing all that with the incredible amount of public, media and political scrutiny that we get every second of the day.Q How did you raise your £2.2 billion budget from the UK private sector?A: There were a number of different streams of revenue, three principal ones that we raised from the organising committee: sponsorship, where we raised about £700 million; ticketing, where we raised about £600 million; and merchandising, where we raised about £100 million. The remainder came from sharing revenue with the International Olympic Committee from their own sponsorship programme and from a share of the TV rights. The big ones over which we have control are domestic sponsorship and ticketing. Probably for me the major achievement of our project was raising that much sponsorship in a time of worldwide economic recession.Q Olympics advocates often highlight a £476 million contingency fund but the actual budget was revised up from £2.4 billion to £9.3 billion! Why did the increase happen?A: £9.3 billion is the government budget for the project, which really deals with the Olympic Park, the regeneration of Stratford, the main transport and security costs. The cost of staging the Games, just over £2 billion, was my budget and the organising committee’s and that budget was entirely privately raised. But you’re correct; the £9.3 billion government budget went up, as you say, from essentially four-and-a-half at bid time. The reason for that was that whilst we won the bid, when we looked at the scale of the opportunity for regeneration in East London we decided to do it thoroughly. Q Between the 90s and now, only the 1996 Atlanta Games has broken even. In hard terms, what do you expect as an end financial result?A: From the organising committee perspective I expect us to break even. That’s what you aim at. We’re not particularly aiming to make a profit but we’re aiming to make sure that we spend what we raised in order to put on a great Games so we, too, aim to break even.Q How can Rio, the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics, improve on your managerial work? A: I can pass on to Rio what I think are the important things to get a project like this right. You’ve got to have a very clear vision, you have to move quickly at the beginning, to make sure you get everything done. You’ve really got to be decisive, build up the organisation and get the design right. Because the seven years go by in a flash. Q Resources are finite, so what can Rio learn in terms of areas that you would have liked more time and money to work on?A: The thing I’ve learnt the most during my time working on the Games is just how important it is to make everybody in the community feel as though they can be involved in it. Because when they feel like they can be involved, they really join in and are a part of it and we feel that at the moment, in the way that people responded to our torch relay which was attracting record crowds everywhere it went - just tremendous community celebrations even when it was pouring with rain. So, my chief takeaway that I’d pass on to them would be: At every possible stage, in every aspect of the project, open it up, let people be a part of it. Q And if you had more time and money what would you tell Rio?A: I don’t want more time. The immoveable deadline is actually an advantage because it forces you to make progress. It forces you to make decisions. Q G4S, contracted by LOCOG, failed to provide adequate security personnel for the Olympic Games 2012, to international and domestic dismay. 3,500 army troops have been drafted in with 2,000 more on standby. How confident are you now of the security delivery? A: The safety and security of athletes and spectators is of utmost importance to us. Providing security for an Olympic and Paralympic Games is a big and complex piece of project management but we have the best brains in the security business working on this and I know that we will deliver a safe and secure Games.More Forbes India storiesRomi Bhatia: We don’t have a Donor-beneficiary relationship with IndiaLarge Parts of the World are LazyA Watch Company Changes Hands. Again Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
