The CRM package from the well-known Williams F1 team, responsible for managing 20,000 important and advanced car parts, is simply a workbook in Excel.

When we write about Formula 1, the collaboration with a major B2B IT specialist is usually worth mentioning because the premier class of motorsport is so closely linked to the latest technology. Think about the AI ​​referee, the collaboration with AWS or the integration of AR. Formula 1 tends to have the most modern IT capabilities in a critical environment and there is something to be learned from that within a company.

Williams is working his way into the IT spotlight in a different way. With 47 years of competing in Formula 1, Williams is a fixture on the racetrack and has a wealth of knowledge and experience. Like other teams, Williams has a huge amount of high-tech components to manage. These must be available at the right time at a race somewhere in the world while being assembled at the UK factory. In other words, CRM is critical, but Williams appears to be doing his job with an Excel workbook.

A joke

Team boss James Vowles, who recently moved to Williams, called the approach “a joke”. Williams has not performed well in recent years and has always been at the bottom of the rankings. Vowles’ job is to solve the problem, but Excel is bothering him.

The workbook contained insufficient information on topics such as part price and production time, the status of orders was unclear, and prioritization was not possible. According to Vowles, Williams missed testing before the 2019 season because of the spreadsheet. Employees sometimes had to manually search for components in the factory.

Not only

The discrepancy between the high-tech aspect of Formula 1 and the useless spreadsheets disguised as CRM is large, although the approach is not unique. Many organizations large and small continue to rely on an old-fashioned workbook system, usually because the migration step is large.

On the other hand, a Formula 1 car costs about fourteen million dollars each and each team can spend $145 million annually. Since not having a CRM is impacting the team’s performance, an upgrade may be in order.