Interview: Sky's the limit - part one

eGR Mobile Intelligence talks exclusively to Sky Betting & Gaming director of products Conor Grant about where Sky Bet’s mobile products suite is headed

Sky Betting & Gaming is every bit the example of a company playing to its strengths and working around its weaknesses. While it may lack the profile and marketing spend of other bookmakers, especially the likes of William Hill and Paddy Power, the company has its own inherent advantages and has pursued growth in a very different way. This approach is particularly true in mobile.

Rather than focus on what Sky Bet’s director of products Conor Grant has called a “big bang approach” to mobile product launches, its strategy has focused on making many gradual increases. Becoming the first operator to roll out single sign-on for its app products was a huge coup and served as a significant endorsement for its in-house development team.

It’s a strategy not too unlike the incremental gains ethos Sir Dave Brailsford introduced to Great Britain’s Cycling team with great effect, and one that has seen Sky Bet race towards the head of the pack in terms of mobile capabilities. And it intends to stay there by continuing along the same path and addressing problems as and when they occur, rather than trying to reinvent a market Grant says still lacks maturity.

eGR Mobile Intelligence spoke with him to find out.

eGR Mobile Intelligence (eMI): There’s been a gradual raft of upgrades to Sky Bet’s apps recently, has that been part of an effort to improve the offering without making radical changes?

Conor Grant (CG): Our philosophy and development capability has been built around small, rapid changes rather than a big bang approach, and we like to release new features on a consistent basis. It doesn’t always happen this way because naturally some pieces do take longer due to their complexity, like our recently launched Sky Casino, but we’ve found the rapid, small deployment and the agile development is more constructive for our customer’s experience and it takes a lot less effort to adjust to small changes, rather than that big bang approach.

The other thing with small changes is it allows us to test and measure what works for our customers and what doesn’t. With the big bang approach you don’t typically get that ability to do that and really understand what’s working for customers. The other downside is you have your head down for many months, and when you finish development the customer’s demands may have moved on. It’s challenging, but predominantly we try to have small, rapid deployments of upgrades.

eMI: And one such improvement would be the trial of live streaming to the sports betting app?

CG: Yes, the La Liga streaming was a successful trial for us and it’s an opportunity that’s very much on our agenda in the coming months. It saw an increase in customer engagement and moved the right metrics for us. Being owned by the same company that owns the UK’s largest sports media broadcaster provides us with a unique opportunity compared to our rivals, and I think we’ll increasingly look to exploit these opportunities in the future.

eMI: How important is it now for mobile sportsbooks to offer streaming?

CG: It’s becoming increasingly important; because not offering streaming puts you at a competitive disadvantage. However there’s a really important caveat here that what you do offer must be relevant to your customer. Being a predominantly UK-facing business we believe the content that we stream to our customers must be engaging to them for it to realise its full value. For instance we don’t believe showing a European handball or basketball game to our UK customer base will appeal to them. It’s really important to have streaming content that truly engages with your customer base.

eMI: Are there any particular sports you’ve found to be more popular?

CG: From our own experience it’s predominantly what I’ve heard is that tennis is very popular and important, and that’s something we’ve seen in data with tennis scoreboards really influencing live betting. I think live streaming for key in-play sports like tennis will be important.

eMI: Has it been a conscious decision not to integrate casino products into the Sky Bet sports app like other operators have?

CG: We were the first operator to have seamless log-in incorporated in our mobile apps so we’ve done it a slightly different way. We cross-sell from the Sky Bet app into all other verticals, and it’s just slightly different in terms of presentation. We fundamentally believe in cross-sell, it’s absolutely paramount to drive customer value.