Providing Digital Workplace Solutions for FIFA in the lead-up to next month’s FIFA World Cup 2026™ is about delivering; taking ideas developed across Lenovo’s business and making them real, at the biggest possible scale, in the most challenging conditions.
I’ve spent the last couple of years working with FIFA even before the partnership was formally announced, figuring out where Lenovo could genuinely deliver value. From day one, this wasn’t just a marketing exercise. We are true partners of FIFA. We’ve been embedded in the operation, running warehouse operations in Zurich with Lenovo employees, and delivering end-user support across all the FIFA Club World Cup competition venues. Our delivery team are an extension of FIFA’s own technology division.
This all starts with the foundations; at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich and its global offices, we’ve deployed and manage the full device ecosystem. We are talking workstations, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. We deliver the hardware but the added value comes in how we deliver that experience. We built FIFA their own Custom Fulfilment Centres, which enables devices to be preconfigured so that users can receive them and start working immediately and the provisioning of inventory can be more efficiently managed.
We also completely restructured FIFA’s Zurich warehouse, embedding our people and processes into their operation. FIFA is a relatively small organization with a huge global footprint, who need to scale up and down immensely come tournament or event time. And FIFA run a lot of tournaments and events. Our warehouse restructuring has allowed FIFA to manage their inventory more efficiently and concentrate on ensuring the Digital Workplace requirements are fully covered to allow smooth operations with minimal disruption.
Success here is about logistics, timing, and precision. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the tournament environment.
A stadium turns into a working site a few weeks before the first match. In that window, you’re not just dealing with your own deployment; you’re alongside suppliers, team staff, venue operations, other global partners, security… all working together for successful delivery under strict security constraints and constant pressure. Unlike a corporate deployment, there’s no flexibility. As I often say, the FIFA World Cup can’t be delayed by two weeks. You either deliver, or you don’t and “don’t” isn’t an option.
This year, we have over 250 engineers across stadiums, plus additional teams across broadcast centres, team base camps, and the Technology Command Center (TCC) in Miami. In total, we’re approaching 350 people delivering technology operations. Importantly, we support everything, not just Lenovo devices. Our role is to ensure the entire end-user environment works seamlessly.
It’s a hybrid model: remote capability combined with critical on-site presence. In the TCC, we’re sitting alongside other technology teams, monitoring live dashboards of network performance, cybersecurity, and on-site issues. If something happens, everyone moves as one team to resolve it in real time.
Ultimately, if we’ve done our job right, nobody notices us. The technology just works.
But delivering that level of invisibility across stadiums, transport hubs, hotels, and broadcast centers – under the scrutiny of billions – is what proves the value of Digital Workplace Solutions. We’re going beyond devices to enable one of the most complex, high-pressure environments in the world to run without interruption.
