Following a number of meetings with Scout7's Head of Business development in France Jerome Lebatard, Lyon's Technical Director Remi Garde was impressed by the versatility of the various modules within the solution.
He cites the depth of information available at youth international all over the world, together with comprehensive domestic data from Africa as key in the club's decision to adopt ProScout7.
He says: "We have been aware of Scout7's services for a while and following a number of presentations made to us by Jerome, we have recognized that as well as managing our own scouting information, we can obtain information fitting many different criteria accurately and quickly.
"One area of particular interest is the depth of data available from domestic leagues in North Africa, together with the youth international information from regional competitions all over the world, which is the most comprehensive I have seen from an independent source.
"In recruitment we must be objective and statistics do not lie. This information, presented alongside all of the reports entered by our own scouts, will be of great assistance as we look manage all of our international and domestic scouting information."
Having made the decision to proactively use ProScout7, Garde and the Lyon international scouting team have spent little time to embrace a number of the report managing modules, which includes managing all individual player reports, collective team assessments and personal recommendations made by each scout privately and securely through the online solution.
They have also benefited from a new Scouting Planner module recently developed by Scout7's Research and Technology team, which has allowed the club to manage the future co-ordination of the scouting network within the solution.
Garde recognises the importance of centralising all the data into management to monitor the scouting process with greater transparency.
"For any professional club, player recruitment as one of the single most important aspects to ensure success on the field is maintained," he explains.
"The processes put in place are there to ensure the potential risks in player recruitment are eliminated as far as is possible.
"With Scout7 we can see how many times we as a club have watched a player, assess the various verdicts given on a player by different scouts and at the same time through the global database identify a player's appearance history, injury history, the period they tend to stay at a club and so on.
"To have all this data in one place and all within a personal player record is fantastic for us when we formulate future recruitment activity.
"In addition, ProScout7 has also provided us with a facility to manage our own DVD archive in-house, which means we can use the system to identify the number of games we have in our own library on various players and teams.
"All this allows many different areas of the recruitment department to be managed centrally in Scout7, which in the next twelve months should be of great benefit to us as we build our own archive."
Jerome Lebatard is delighted that Lyon have embraced all the different areas of the solution and is sure that the club will go on to have a long and successful association with Scout7 for many years to come.
"I am both honoured and delighted that the club that have dominated French football for so long have turned to us to assist in the efficient management of their scouting process," he explains.
"Their forward thinking approach to scouting fits with our own philosophy for 21st century recruitment and I am looking forward to assisting them in maximising the benefits they can have through the proactive use of the ProScout7 technology.
"We now have eighteen all over France using the solution and I am sure this number is going to grow ever larger in 2008 as we continue to evolve and expand our services."
