Lotus F1 Team and Microsoft – speed matters.

A quick thank you to the Lotus Formula 1 folks for hosting Rebecca and me in Enstone UK last week. For those of you who don’t follow Formula 1, it’s considered the pinnacle of motorsports, where the technology is arguably as important, if not in some cases more important, than the drivers. Annual team budgets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, teams employ hundreds of people, and in the case of the Lotus F1 team, they have a data center that would be the envy of any organization. All of that money and personnel is focused on a single objective: eliminating fractions of a second from a lap time. And that’s where Microsoft Dynamics comes in. Rebecca and I have visited hundreds of companies over the years and measured the value technology delivers across a wide range of organizations, from fork lift manufacturers in Mississippi to light bulb manufacturers in Finland. Of all of the organizations, the Lotus F1 Team was the most focused on how technology and its close partnership with Microsoft can drive the end result – going faster.

Microsoft Dynamics, Office 365, and Surface devices were all used (or in development) to streamline the processes within Lotus and tie the team at the racetrack back to marketing, PR, development, and raw materials ordering at the factory. Why is this so important? A problem on the racetrack (say, a clutch problem, for instance) can be quickly traced back to the stocked parts at the factory and corrected before those parts are used at a future race. Data can be analyzed (and they generate 25MB per lap) more efficiently and changes can be identified and implemented. Small things matter, and in this highly competitive sport locked in constant development where new parts are finely crafted from exotic material or printed in 3D printers, any delay in information flow is time lost against competitors.

And it’s not just the time lost at the factory. Increasing the efficiency of technology frees up money spent on IT for use in other development activities. For a team looking to gain over 2 seconds a lap this year, that means that yes, for the Lotus F1 Team, using Microsoft will play a part in ultimately making their car faster. And in Formula 1, that is the only measure that really matters.