How the Chiefs unified fragmented group budgets with IDU-Concept.

Sports Shared Services is the financial backbone of Chiefs Rugby and its three subsidiary unions — Waikato, Bay of Plenty, and Counties-Manukau — providing accounting, payroll, reporting, and budgeting across the four-entity group. It runs that process on IDU-Concept. The Gallagher Chiefs, based in Hamilton, New Zealand, compete in Super Rugby as one of the country's five franchises, playing out of Waikato Stadium. Sports Shared Services exists to keep that entire operation financially coherent, from the professional franchise to the provincial unions that feed it.

Holding that operation together financially was harder than it looked. Cost centres were spread across every function — stadium management, catering, player academies, marketing, and sponsorship — with managers whose primary focus was rugby, not reporting lines. Most budget owners had no formal financial training, and asking them to engage meaningfully with a budgeting process felt remote from the work they cared about. Buy-in was low, and frustration was real.

The problem compounded at the group level. Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Counties-Manukau, and the Chiefs franchise each carried their own requirements and agendas. Four entities meant four sets of assumptions working at cross-purposes, and without a shared system to contain them, budgets were inconsistent and slow to finalise. Sports Shared Services needed a way to bring the whole group into one process — without demanding that a stadium operations manager become a finance professional first.

In 2012, Sports Shared Services implemented IDU-Concept's Budgeting and Reporting Modules across the entire four-entity group. The decision to go web-based was deliberate — the system was built with non-financial users in mind from the outset. Managers working across stadium operations, player academies, and sponsorship could now capture their budgets, forecasts, and expenses without the process demanding financial fluency they didn't have. By centralising management while empowering individual cost centres, IDU transformed budgeting into a transparent, efficient process that supported both operational and strategic goals.

Mobile access extended that reach further. Cost-centre managers spread across Waikato, Bay of Plenty, and Counties-Manukau could access their data from wherever they were working, rather than waiting on reports to reach them. And for Sports Shared Services, consolidated visibility across all four entities meant the group finally had a single process rather than four competing ones — with enough consistency to make meaningful comparisons and enough simplicity to make real participation possible.

The outcomes were clear and consistent across the group.

- Simplified budgeting, accessible to non-financial users — managers could engage with the process rather than work around it. - Faster reporting cycles, with information circulating more quickly and staff freed to focus on sporting excellence. - Greater accountability, as managers began to own their financial performance rather than defer it. - Mobile visibility, enabling cost-centre managers across all four entities to access their data whenever and wherever they needed it.

'Using IDU-Concept has simplified and streamlined Sports Shared Services' budgeting and reporting, saving time and allowing them to focus on sporting excellence. It's no coincidence the Chiefs went on to win back-to-back Super Rugby titles in 2012 and 2013.' — Kevin Phillips, CEO, IDU

'I've been very impressed at how IDU has not only made our whole budgeting process much simpler and speedier, but also meant that our management team have a real understanding of their budgets and take proper ownership of their financial performance.' — CEO, Chiefs Rugby