McLaren Group accelerates into the future with SAP

As one of the UK’s most diverse and rapidly growing high-technology businesses, the McLaren Group is delighted to announce a new stage in our relationship with SAP®, the market and technology leader in enterprise application software. To improve efficiency and expand our performance capability, we will transform our IT infrastructure using SAP’s portfolio of high-performance solutions. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® NOW, which is currently being held in Orlando, Florida, USA.

“At McLaren we’re accustomed to handling big data,” said Ron Dennis, Executive Chairman, McLaren Group. “On every lap of every Grand Prix, practice or test session, our Formula 1 cars generate vast quantities of performance data. Our ability to process that data and act on it rapidly is crucial to creating the kind of prescriptive intelligence that enables us to transform the outcome of races. And that need resonates through every other facet of our business.

“The McLaren Group is a rapidly growing business and has unique demands for our software implementation. These are exciting times for our business, and as we look to the future, we’re pleased to be able to partner with a company like SAP that shares our values – passion, commitment and the willingness to make sacrifices in order to be the absolute best. The growth and longevity of our brand are dependent on our having a varied portfolio, supported by a strong business plan, implemented by the best people – with input from the best partners.”

SAP has a long-standing relationship with various parts of the McLaren Group. This latest announcement marks a new stage in our relationship, aimed at transforming our IT backbone with a view to greater efficiency and faster performance across the whole spectrum of our activities. SAP HANA® will boost the speed and depth of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes’ telemetry technology, enabling us to look at much larger data sets and ask more complex questions; and SAP’s Rapid Deployment Solutions and mobile apps will empower everyone across the business with the real-time information they need to stay ahead.

While our core activity is Formula 1 racing, a fast-changing sport that demands enormous data processing ability and rapid development capacity, we are making significant investments in the future through a diverse and growing portfolio of businesses, including McLaren Applied Technologies and McLaren Electronic Systems. These businesses are founded on our core values of innovation, technical agility and absolute quality, and depend on them in order to thrive.

“Big data is only going to get bigger,” said Ron Dennis. “I’m greatly looking forward to working with SAP to further optimise the infrastructure and operation of the entire McLaren Group: to challenge ourselves to be even better than we are.”

“Transforming information into intelligence in real time is a cornerstone for McLaren’s winning formula – and increasingly critical for the future of every company,” said Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEO, SAP AG. “With SAP HANA, mobile and the complete SAP portfolio underpinning its business, McLaren can now bring increased intelligence across the full spectrum of its business operations. SAP will be able to help McLaren better anticipate, accelerate and differentiate its business - keeping them very much in the driver’s seat. In short, working together, SAP will help McLaren run like never before.”