Background
According to Fitness First (2013, p.1), the founders of the Fitness First Health and Fitness Centre (FFHFC) were Christopher Peace and Mike Balfour in 1993. Since it was started, the club has extended its services to the rest of the UK, Australia, Asia, and Europe. At Hatfield, the club was meant to serve customers from the adjacent areas.
The purpose of starting the club was to provide health and fitness training services to people belonging to different age groups and income levels under the directorship of the co-founders. According to Fitness First (2013, p.1), the services were categorized into agility, strength, interval, and continuous training.
For effective service delivery, the center provided physical health services, which included stretching, rowing, hiking, and aerobic exercises (The Importance of Market Segmentation 2013, p.1). That was in addition to weight training, high-intensity interval training, sprinting, and eccentric training needs (Marketing theory 2013, p.1).
The center was established to exploit the existing business opportunities in the market, and it experienced no competition because there no clubs offering similar services (Fitness First 2013, p.1).
As soon as it was established, an awareness campaign was launched using adverts, social networking sites, promotional activities, gifts, personal selling activities, and direct marketing to meet the people and present the idea to the people. The results were good. A significant number of customers started inquiring about the services and registering for the services (Fitness First 2013, p.1).
Statement of the problem
However, with time, the business outlook and expectations started to change. Prospective customers could call in, inquire about the services, express gratitude and satisfaction for the services, but a small number reported back. The business started to register a falling number of customers and to experience financial difficulties. The business was unable to sustain itself, and the prospects looked worse (The market segmentation company 2013, p.1).
The problem was a drop in the number of customers because of poor and disintegrating facilities, overpricing, lack of a quality assurance program, leadership problems, and lack of a strategic vision and mission statement to direct the business. The solution was to revise the pricing, introduce a quality assurance program, revise leadership strategies, and rewrite the vision and mission statements.
Facilities
At the meeting, a number of issues that had not come to the attention of the management were raised (Fitness First 2013, p.1). One of the points included inadequate facilities. It was realised that because of the dynamic needs of the customers and changes in consumer behaviour, people were not satisfied with the existing facilities and some of the facilities had outlived their usefulness (Fitness First 2013, p.1).
Pricing
The members of the meeting raised the issue of pricing. It was discovered after perusing through some market intelligence report in the meeting that other competitors had penetrated the market and were offering similar services at lower prices, almost 48% lower than the Company’s prices.
Mission and vision
The mission and vision statements were not revised according to the changing business trends, and the Company lacked a new business strategy to address the changing business environment.
Other issues
It was recommended that the club revise management strategies, introduce a quality assurance program, employ qualified staff, revise its marketing strategies, motivate employees, and use modern advertisement programs to reach the customers.
References
Fitness First 2013. Web.
Health Fitness Marketing plan: corporate fitness 2013. Web.
Marketing theory 2013. Web.
The Importance of Market Segmentation 2013. Web.
The market segmentation company 2013. Web.