The Benefits of TODS

Why do we need TODS?

Tennis is a global sport which requires fast exchange of information world-wide with high levels of quality and reliability. A rapidly increasing amount of tennis data is being sent electronically between a wide array of tennis organisations, service providers, and other stakeholders in the sport. These exchanges are done on both a routine and ad-hoc basis, consisting of a diverse range of data including events calendars, tournament information and results, entry lists, analysis, rankings, and player details. This is not confined to just one or two categories but occurs at every level of the sport, from recreational to elite, under 12's to 90+ Seniors, including other disciplines such as Wheelchair, and across all levels of competition, from Grand Slams down to grassroots club events.

The problem is that currently there is little uniformity in how that data is being exchanged - the formats of this data and the mechanisms used for its transport vary widely. This has a huge impact on how easily, quickly, and efficiently information is shared.

Using a wide range of different databases and information systems, each with their own custom or proprietary data storage and export formats, invariably means that for each new incoming or outgoing data feed, significant development is required to create an appropriate system to process this information and to handle its transfer. Maintaining these data feeds takes large amounts of time and effort.

Benefits of TODS

• Reduced Costs – The costs of developing and maintaining numerous different data exchange solutions and interfaces will drop dramatically as these can be consolidated in fewer, reusable, standards-compliant interfaces. This also frees up significant development time, allowing technical IT employees to work at providing benefit in other areas.
• Better Data Quality – Easy and efficient data sharing will help to drive an increase in data quality. This will allow for better understanding and analysis of data as well as higher data confidence. Using this analysis has the potential to increase revenue, customer satisfaction, and reduce costs by allowing people to make informed strategic decisions that are supported by trusted information.
• Innovation – By allowing data to be exchanged with greater ease, barriers to entering the market are reduced. This will allow for new methods, ideas, services, products and technologies to join the tennis community, providing new opportunities for growth, new revenue streams, and reduced costs.
• Collaboration – Making it easier to share data allows organisations to work together as they collect more information and conduct more specific and detailed analysis. Sharing common goals and working together with help establish or deepen bonds between companies.
• Enabler – TODS is an enabler for the ITF World Tennis Number project which will provide benefits across the sport at all levels. TODS is the standard required for any exchange of data with the platform.