IGT continues to put its customers first with innovative solutions and services that have made it the global leader in the gaming industry. “Our commitment and focus on the lottery industry, its needs, welfare and development is unwavering as indeed it has been for over 40 years,” stated IGT International SVP & COO Declan Harkin. “We have the most skilled and experienced lottery industry people to support our customers with their growth plans, competitive challenges and fast changing regulatory environments. Our capabilities are now further enhanced post-merger with the industry’s deepest end-to-end offering of gaming products and content.”
The driving principle in meeting the needs of lottery customers is simple: “We know that we must earn and maintain our customers’ trust every day by delivering what they expect from us. Our mantra is ‘execution, execution, execution.’ We understand that the reliability, integrity and complete functionality of our platforms and systems are of the highest importance to our lottery customers. We are passionate about meeting our commitments, achieving deadlines and satisfying our customers,” said Harkin.
IGT also manages B2C operations on several continents that provides in-depth perspectives on the challenges that lotteries deal with around the world. “From these operations we learn and share openly what worked well and what did not, while also interpreting the very important local and cultural differences and needs across every country and region. IGT fully understands how the investment in its lottery solutions must deliver added value, whether that be in growing sales, improving time to market, reducing costs or facilitating deeper player and market insights and understanding,” noted Harkin. For example, Lottomatica, being one of the strongest performing lotteries in the world, provides an extremely valuable learning ground for IGT. “Lottomatica is competing very successfully in a sophisticated marketplace in every gaming segment,” he said.
“Beyond Lottomatica, in Latin America, we have several very successful lottery operations where in addition to gaming products we also provide consumers with ready access to commercial services transactions such as bill payment at the point of sale. And back in Europe we also operate several interactive licenses that position us to learn in highly competitive commercial environments. These continuous learning experiences make us a better partner to serve the needs of our customers.”
To enable all of this, IGT will be showcasing its new fully reengineered Lottery Business platform called Aurora at WLS. While building upon the deep learning and capabilities of previous IGT Lottery platforms, Aurora enables lotteries to deliver an omnichannel approach to their business and greatly improve time to market. “What sets Aurora apart is the fact that it’s relevant to all our customers, wherever they are on their development roadmap,” he said. “It delivers a fully integrated omnichannel capability and among many features has sophisticated analytics toolsets allowing lotteries to manage and develop their player relationships through their retailers and directly through B2C channels. “Our Aurora platform builds upon the experiences, deep learning and capabilities of previous generations while employing the very latest technologies and architecture,” said Harkin. “As lotteries expand their cross channel capabilities, Aurora ensures that all lottery stakeholders have a total player view with the essential data, insights and tools they need to fully develop and harness those player relationships.”
While omnichannel is on everyone’s roadmap, for the majority of IGT’s customers around the world, retail will continue to remain a key sales channel for the foreseeable future. “Retail solutions must also be modern, relevant and attractive to today’s players in the same way they experience and are influenced to purchase other FMCG and entertainment products in retail. It’s a channel that we remain firmly committed to and will continue to lead and innovate for. Indeed, it’s one of the reasons why for WLS this year, we are also showcasing the future of retail and consumer trends and how they might be applied to lottery purchases in the future. The convergence of digital and retail is already here and we are really excited by this showcase and look forward to the feedback from all the attendees.”
What players want from lotteries is engaging, entertaining content and a winning experience. “The merger of IGT and GTECH created the broadest and deepest portfolio of gaming content in the world covering draw-based games, instant tickets, land-based gaming, interactive, social space and many hybrid permutations for all channels,” said Harkin. “All this library of content and experience is available to our customers along with subject matter experts to help interpret and evaluate.”
“In addition, and to ensure we are constantly on the forefront of interactive games, we have pooled the resources of several hundred software engineers, artists and game designers from around the world to create a series of IGT Game Studios in geographic regions. By combining artistic, gaming and scientific talents, along with the cultural nuances of our five worldwide studio locations, responsible gaming processes and our unique approach to managing, we release multiple new game concepts every quarter per region.”
IGT also recognizes that when it comes to content, its customers are looking for best-in-class concepts and whatever will be optimal for their market.
“Aurora’s open platform means that it is not only compatible with IGT’s extensive and continuously expanding library of brands and content, but also readily integrates with any other provider of content that a lottery may wish to engage. Our focus and attention is on whatever our customers’ needs are to grow and be successful in their marketplace. As a Customer First organization, IGT will always be guided first and foremost by that,” concluded Harkin.