Estra Group profile

Estra Group is a multi-utility company operating in the sales of natural gas, electricity, and ultra-fast fiber connectivity. With over 1 billion/€ in annual revenues and over 700 employees, Estra is a major player in the Italian market.

Estra’s philanthropic involvement

Estra group is renowned for its involvement with sponsorship programs. Every year the company allocates large amounts of budget for sponsoring various initiatives with the main scope of promoting Green Energy - Energy of the Future, and human well-being. As tech partners, we feel very blessed by helping them apply technology to their process of giving.

What is Estra Ecup?

Estra Ecup is a contest created for all Italian non-professional sports clubs. The contest aims to donate cash prizes to sports clubs with the most active fanbase. With this initiative, Estra can create awareness for its brand while at the same time doing something very important for the community as non-professional sports clubs only rely on sponsorships for their maintenance. Obtaining the prize, for a sports club, would mean having extra money to fuel initiatives like summer camps and sports events!

How does Estra Ecup work?

All Italian non-professional sports clubs are invited to register on the Ecup public platform. Once they are registered they can be voted by their fans through the platform.

Voting for a club is fairly simple. A fan can go to the platform and search for his/her favorite club and click on “vote”. If the fan is an adult, in order to vote he/she is required to enter some personal information like name, mail address, and social security number. His/her vote in this case counts twice. When a minor votes no personal information is required, but the vote only counts as one.

Who wins?

15 teams with the most votes will win, one for each sport category (ballet, volleyball, basketball, etc). 5 additional prizes will be awarded by a special committee to “the most inclusive clubs”.

Technologies, integration, and automation

The whole project is based on a powerful single-page application that we developed within Estra’s custom software ecosystem called Emma. The front end is in React while the backend is in Ruby on Rails. The application is totally integrated with Estra’s website and CRM software to perform marketing automation activities.

When a club registers via Ecup’s form, the system sends to the back-office an approval request, if the request is approved then the system creates the club’s voting page and sends an acceptance notification to the submitter. At this stage, a link to the club voting page is generated and sent to the submitter, who will share it with the club fanbase via all different social media (FB, IG, Whatsapp, etc.) in order to invite them to vote. The rankings are always visible and public.