Adaptability: The New Reality for Businesses
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Photo by Renee Fisher on Unsplash
We live in an era of instability and risk. The internet, new technologies, globalization have been defining our lifestyle for some time.
For a company, staying competitive in today’s world poses a constant demand for new skills and a willingness to adapt. A common assumption is that a good organization and effective planning are the best way to cope through turbulent times, but even the best-laid plans can be useless when the landscape changes suddenly or too quickly. This leads to the common saying: “adapt or die”.
Companies don’t fail because of changes in the environment, they fail because their leaders are unwilling or incapable of dealing with said change.
Since the beginning of the year, we have seen this in action, due to the COVID-19, thousands of stores and businesses were forced to close, abruptly changing almost every industry. As time went by, some of them announced that they could not adapt to the “new reality” and now are gone forever.
This week I saw a video uploaded by the Wall Street Journal titled “How Gyms are Bracing for the Future of Fitness”
Making me think about how might the pandemic transformed the fitness industry?
At first, gyms closed as social distancing was a priority, then some reopened but exclusively with an appointment and small groups of people. Now, they have remained partially closed and there’s no definitive date when they’ll be able to be in full capacity.
While this was happening, People needed to stay fit and in shape, and they saw in-home gym programs as a temporary solution. but now, as lockdowns and more restrictions return in some parts of the world, it’s unclear if most people will ever feel comfortable setting foot in a gym again, which creates the need for gyms to innovate the way they interact with their customers.
As people were more eager to do exercise, brands started to create online content on social media, such as live streams, workouts with some trainers, and online classes, making room for companies like Peloton, Mirror, Echelon to grow.
The transition from the physical to the digital economy is difficult to navigate but is essential to survive in the current landscape.
Several practices have been proved effective in giving companies adaptive capabilities to thrive. Harvard did a fantastic article explaining each one of them in this 2011’s article
These practices are:
Look at the new players
Identify and address the uncertainties.
Put an initiative on every risk
Examine multiple alternatives
Increase the clock speed for innovation
For gyms or fitness centers, one thing is true, people never went to Yoga or a Pilates class just for the exercise, they went for the community behind it, like their neighbors, friends, and relatives were there, now on digital, this still can be true but gyms need to adapt.
Based on the practices above and what we know about gyms chains, the best way to help these companies survive is by creating programs similar to what the new gamers are doing, sharing virtual classes with their customers.
This could be risky but is not that expensive, for example, people who paid a monthly or yearly fee have already a paid plan but are not going, instead of them buying equipment to do a new routine, the Gym chain can provide links to Zoom or Microsoft Teams where the same teacher they already had will give a class with the same people they went before all this happened. Keeping the community safe while the future is still unclear.
As for the buildings, they can keep it open with all the restrictions but changing it to make it more a place to go not just to exercise but to relax, as can add better saunas or massage stations which are individual activities, trying to keep the flow of people going and some remaining attached to the brand.
I know this would require a lot of work from gym owners but what else can they do to survive? let me know what you think by writing in the comment section or by sending me a tweet to my profile.
Until next week,
Jose
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