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A lesson from ZARA

What can health club executives learn from leading Spanish clothing retailer ZARA? Despite having a completely different business model from that of health clubs, ZARA can teach us a thing or two about creating a competitive advantage through innovation.

Predicting Fashion Trends

ZARA has managed to develop a strong competitive advantage by staying ahead of the fashion trends, and offering its customers forward fashion at very competitive prices. While ZARA's psychic-like ability to consistently predict the next hot fashion trends might seem mystical, it is actually a planned an calculated process that has become essential to it's success. Part of this calculated process involves ZARA designers receiving weekly subjective insight from store managers regarding their predictions on the next big thing. Linking this information, with the monitoring of existing inventory supply and demand, Zara's designers have been able to stay ahead of the curve!

Role of Front Line Employees

This example strengthens the argument that no one is in tune with what the customers want more than front line employees. Not only did ZARA realize this, but it took action, and developed a system that would allow for this transfer of information. Could this practice of "front line guided innovation" be applied to the health club and fitness industries?

Connection to Health Club Business

In the health club industry, group exercise is an essential component of minimizing member attrition and creating a member culture within the health club. As a result, many health clubs provide group exercise classes as a benefit to all members. Recently, 24 Hour Fitness, among other health clubs, has stepped up their game by providing a multitude of new group exercise classes and programs to its members (discussed in previous post). Classes ranging from mindfulness to high intensity interval training have been added to many gyms across the country. With various companies attempting to benchmark each other, how can you position your health club to stay ahead of the group exercise curve, thus leaving their competition in the dust?

Key To Predicting Group Exercise Trends

The key to strategic innovation for group exercise lies in systematically seeking out the insight offered by general managers, personal trainers, and group exercise instructors. This knowledge can then be used to fuel and guide calculated programing decisions at the executive level. By now, I know many of you are thinking "Yeah right, that would be a logistical nightmare!"

Not so fast, new technology might enable companies to implement this strategy much easier than ever thought possible!

New Company Could Have the Solution...

While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, I came across an article that provides the solution to the logistical issue discussed previously. In her article titled  "Startups in HR Let Workers Have Their Say", Lauren Weber, discusses highlights from the HR technology conference held in Las Vegas earlier this week. One of the companies mentioned, called Hyphen which provides a mobile based app that allows real time feedback from employees. 

"Feel The Pulse of Your Workforce in Real Time" 

Is the headline on Hyphen's website. While the app is designed to allow employees to anonymously voice  concerns, I can't help but see it as a solution to executing a "front line guided innovation" strategy. Could we use this technology to collect insight from our front line managers? We will see if Hyphen has the answer to this question. In the mean time, I am excited about this new technology, and believe that, if used correctly, it could provide your company with the ability to create a strong competitive advantage over the competition. Please visit Hyphen's website for more information. Will you, and your team take steps to stay ahead of your competition? If so, I would love to hear about it! 

Until next time, have a great weekend and let us continue to empower the world through fitness!

Rob Lewis