Bally Total Fitness Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Bally Total Fitness - Case Study Example Bally had been capitalizing on a trend in the early 2000’s where more Americans were becoming devoted to fitness and were attempting to reduce their household or personal obesity levels. It was during this period where a large portion of American society proclaimed to be interested in fitness and understood its importance in physical health. Bally began to target this large segment of â€Å"uninitiated believers† as the primary market for potential growth in the firm (Wells, 2008, p.1). Bally quickly became successful, by changing its marketing premise and targeting objectives, to create a rather diverse user profile for its many facilities. By adding new services that were in-line with the current needs of its vast consumer base, such as Pilates training, yoga, and other core systems, Bally found considerable success and growth. However, growth in much different public and private health clubs and organizations began to take some of Bally’s market share away by using celebrity endorsements or by appealing to niche market groups and then capitalizing on their personal needs to find success, such as with Curves. It was large growth in the competition that harmed Bally’s market position. Bally maintained many different barriers in terms of entering new markets since the equipment used for fitness cannot be easily converted into newly-marketable products or services. They are designed for physical fitness only. Under Porter’s Five Forces Model, â€Å"asset specificity is the extent to which a firm’s assets can be used to produce a different product† (quickmba.com, 2010, p.4). Bally had incorporated specialized training in the firm from outsourced or in-house talent experts, such as Pilates and yoga instructors, whose knowledge and skills could not be transferred into new markets.  

Electronic Banking Has More Benefits for the Bank than for the Bank's Essay

Electronic Banking Has More Benefits for the Bank than for the Bank's Customers - Essay Example Because customer satisfaction has gained much significance in all industry segments, and banking being a retail industry where rush of customers for their daily banking needs is huge, benefits of e-banking to the customers are being provided with extra vigour by the banking industry to attract more and more customers as banking market is very competitive. For banks, internet banking offers the strategic possibility of cutting costs, better customer service; attract more customers and add-on with the cross-selling opportunities. Banks view electronic banking a very positive feature of their services. E-banking has its own challenges and opportunities, challenges emerging from the serious ramifications of global e-banking. In the global context, it is stated that the transaction costs have reduced drastically making it feasible to realise cross-border banking transactions electronically. Such an opportunity provides to the banks the potential of economies of scale. Such electronic cros s-border transactions need to be cleared by banks by taking additional safety measures (Nitsure, 2004). Benefits of e-banking to Banks Cost-effective According to Orr (1999) electronic banking cuts the cost of each transaction at once. ... It cuts down the cost of the bill if it is served to the customer electronically in comparison to when it is physically delivered in hard paper via post. Irvine (1999) remarks that banks leverage cost by saving 40% than in hard copy. Both the customers of the bank and the bank itself get the benefit from reduced cost without affecting the provision of effective and comprehensive services. Loyal Customers According to a research organised by Forrester Research, 61% of the participants were of the view that if banks come forward to deliver the services as desired by them they would gladly remain customers with such banks (Dixon, 1999). Knowing well what their customers want, banks are offering a â€Å"hub† of related services such as bill presentment and payment, financial planning, property planning, insurance, loans and brokerage services. The internet has facilitated this convergence of financial services, which was not possible otherwise from a centralised system. Banking we b sites providing convergence of services to the customers deliver a more comprehensive experience to such customers who randomly visit the bank website to use the offered services. The objective of the banks behind such convergence of offered services is to hook the customers by creating loyalty, providing the opportunity of bundling of services, which can be realised in increased earning from such customers, using various services of the banks under the umbrella. Additional Services Banks are offering financial portal services to their customers wherein various financial services and products like stocks and mortgages are presented to the customers, which have opened up another earning stream for the banks. It has become possible because of Internet integration.