The U.S. Health Club Industry in 2004

John R. Wells; Gabriel  Ellsworth; Benjamin  Weinstock

Background Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2004 (Revised September 2019)

The U.S. Health Club Industry in 2004

by John R. Wells, Gabriel Ellsworth and Benjamin Weinstock

Abstract

In 2004, the $16.8 billion U.S. health club industry continued its strong record of growth. There were almost 27,000 health clubs in the United States, up from 6,700 two decades earlier, and these clubs claimed 41 million members, over 14% of the U.S. population. Nearly 67 million people used these clubs in 2004. As the industry grew, many large chains began to emerge, opening new outlets and buying up smaller chains and independents. Most industry observers believed the growth and consolidation would continue, providing many opportunities for investors. However, few health club chains were publicly listed, and the leading listed company, Bally Total Fitness, was under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for accounting irregularities. Yet this investigation did little to dampen enthusiasm for the new personal health phenomenon, and rumors abounded of private equity deals in the offing. The key question for investors seemed to be how best to take advantage of the opportunity.

Keywords: health clubs; fitness; gyms; chain; weight loss; obesity; exercise; personal training; retention; Bally Total Fitness; 24 Hour Fitness; YMCA; Gold's Gym; Curves; franchise; Franchising; subscription; promotional sales; promotions; Fixed costs; body; Accrual Accounting; Revenue Recognition; Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Trends; Customers; Demographics; Age; Income; Private Equity; Financing and Loans; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Health; Nutrition; Business History; Employees; Retention; Human Capital; Working Conditions; Contracts; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Supply and Industry; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Operations; Service Operations; Franchise Ownership; Private Ownership; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Sales; Salesforce Management; Situation or Environment; Opportunities; Nonprofit Organizations; Welfare or Wellbeing; Sports; Strategy; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Customization and Personalization; Expansion; Segmentation; Hardware; Health Industry; United States;

Language: English

Format: Print

24 pages

Educators Purchase

Citation:

Wells, John R., Gabriel Ellsworth, and Benjamin Weinstock. "The U.S. Health Club Industry in 2004." Harvard Business School Background Note 705-445, November 2004. (Revised September 2019.)

In October 2019, Dan Macklin, the newly-appointed chief executive of Salary Finance Inc., was weighing his options for the future of the business. The company’s value proposition was quite simple: partner with employers to offer employees affordable loans that were repaid through automatic payroll deductions. Taking repayments directly from salary, and collecting those repayments in one transaction from the employer, dramatically reduced costs, saving employees large amounts of interest when compared to market alternatives like credit cards or payday lenders.
Salary Finance Inc. was a subsidiary of Salary Finance Limited which was launched in the UK in 2015. By September 2018, Salary Finance Limited had partnered with over 100 UK employers and offered loans to around one million employees. It was at this point that the company decided to try and replicate this success in the United States, and opened an office in Boston, Massachusetts. By October 2019, the US business had partnered with 15 employers, offering loans to around 50,000 employees.
In October 2019, Macklin was contemplating the best way to accelerate the growth of Salary Finance Inc. to hit his 10 million employee target. He was also wrestling with whether he should stick with the core product or add new products to drive sales. This had worked well in the UK where pay advances and savings accounts had proven popular in addition to their core loan product. Salary Finance Inc. was off to a good start, but it remained uncertain how quickly Macklin could grow the business and help more Americans get out of debt.

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2020

Celata Bioinnovations

John R. Wells, Benjamin Weinstock, John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In December 2019, Jon Hu (Harvard Business School MBA, 2019) and Dr. Samantha Dale Strasser, co-founders of Celata Bioinnovations, were raising $1 million to launch their company. They had founded Celata less than six months earlier with the aim of redefining the drug discovery process. Celata’s platform used novel data types and a unique data integration process to generate hypotheses about proteins that were involved in the formation and progression of disease. They believed the platform was better and faster at identifying actionable biological targets, increasing the speed of discovery and reducing the chances of failure, promising to lower costs and bring drugs to market more quickly. Their platform had achieved proof of concept during Strasser’s PhD research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), when it helped identify and validate a target related to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) in mouse models. However, full validation wouldn’t come until their platform was used to develop a drug that successfully treated a disease in humans, a process that could take several years.
In the first instance, Celata’s platform was best suited to identify targets for cancers, inflammatory diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases, which collectively presented a global market opportunity of over $200 billion. However, Hu and Strasser were debating which opportunities to pursue. Should they try to improve the efficacy of current drugs, or go for brand new opportunities, indications for which there were no solutions on the market? And if they focused on the latter, should they just look for large market opportunities, or include “orphan” diseases, for which there was a relatively small market? Should they look for small molecule drug candidates, or include large molecule biologics in their search? And where should they operate in the drug development pipeline? At one extreme, they could sell potential drug candidates to established pharmaceutical companies; at the other, they could “go full pharma” and build a new pharmaceutical company themselves.

Keywords: drug development; drug discovery; Drug Trials; Pharmaceutical Companies; Pharmaceutical Company; Pharmaceuticals; therapeutics; Biologics; biotech; biotechnology; biopharmacy company; biochemistry; technology commercialization; technology companies; Drug Testing; Startup; start-up; Startups; start-ups; Startup financing; strategic decision making; strategic decisions; strategic evolution; FDA; Food and Drug Administration; clinical trials; disease management; market attractiveness; Market entry; market opportunities; Health Disorders; Technological Innovation; Technology; Commercialization; Business Startups; Finance; Decision Making; Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Opportunities; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry;