Byklyn: Pivoting during the COVID-19 pandemic - Case Study Analysis

This case study analyzes the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health and fitness industry with a focus on Byklyn exercise bike fitness studio. It discusses the challenges faced by the studio and proposed solutions to the problem.

Integrated Case Study
(Byklyn: Pivoting during the COVID-19 pandemic)

Executive Summary
The present case study is about Byklyn exercise bike fitness studio that offers health and fitness
related services to the customers. However, the respective entity is facing numerous issues due to
the impact of COVID-19 pandemic over health & fitness industry. It is analyzed that COVID-19
affected the health and fitness industry profoundly as people are likely to afraid to visit to gyms
and other fitness centers. The lockdown caused ample of issues for the selected company in
terms of minimizing their overall sales & revenue along with the number of clients. Now, the
owner of the respective company, Glosser is planning to adopt virtual classes, reducing capacity
and starting outdoor activities in order to manage the business in post-pandemic environment.

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Statement of the problem.........................................................................................................................4
Research aims and objectives..................................................................................................................4
Case Brief: Description of the situation.......................................................................................................5
Problem statement, plan of analysis:...........................................................................................................6
Analysis and Findings:................................................................................................................................8
Proposed solutions to the problem:............................................................................................................10
Recommendations.................................................................................................................................10
Limitations of the study.........................................................................................................................10
Scope for further research......................................................................................................................10
References.................................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
Statement of the problem
COVID-19 has been created issues for all the business entities as it caused lockdown to
several countries so that it was restricted for the people for step out their place. In this situation,
it was quite complex for the business owners to keep the business running in absence of adequate
number of customers. As a result, the organization witness consistent decline in the existing sales
and revenue. Health and fitness industry can be understood as one of the majorly affected
industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic globally (Nah and Siau, 2020). The present report is
based on Byklyn exercise bike fitness studio that was temporally closed due to the COVID-19
pandemic. The closure affected sales and revenue of the respective studio in profound manner.
The present project is based on the issues that were being faced by the respective entity due to
pandemic.
Research aims and objectives
Research Aim:
“To analyze the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health and fitness industry. A study on
Byklyn exercise bike fitness studio.
Research objectives:
 To analyze impact of COVID-19 on health and fitness industry.
 To identify the challenges faced by Byklyn excerise bike fitness studio due to the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Structure of the rest of the report
The current project is based on how pandemic affected health and fitness industry. It is
analyzed that pandemic imposed lockdown in different cities globally. During such time, people
were not allowed to come out from their place to control the transmission of virus. In this
situation, it was quite complex for health and fitness companies to maintain pre-defined level of
profit. In present case study, Byklyn exercise bike fitness studio also faced issue in terms of lack

of visitors within the studio. The present project report will include description of the situation,
plan of analysis, assessment of the current situations being faced by the company, solution to the
problem along with limitation of the study, scope for further research and more.
Case Brief: Description of the situation
In the given case, it is stated that health and fitness industry got affected by the COVID-19
pandemic significantly. Before COVID-19, it was consider wise to do exercise but after the
pandemic risk of getting infection was really high in the fitness centers due to huge public
gathering at a place and sharing of same equipments (Ananthakrishnan, Chen and Susarla, 2020).
After imposing lockdown across the nation, ample of fitness centers started to run online classes.
They started to give virtual sessions so that people do not need to interact with each-other
physically. In this situation, some fitness centers used to perform well in terms of virtual setting
as they are likely to practice virtual classes for longer time. But, certain centers are still
struggling to operate online classes (Grout and Leggat, 2021). In the give case, there is
description regarding Byklyn exercise bike fitness studio that is run by a female owner named as
Glosser who is worried due to the negative impacts of the pandemic over the studio. The
respective studio was started in the year of 2014 by converting the space of a former Chinese
restaurant in fitness center. Glosser was good at marketing and branding hence she combined
two names bike and Brooklyn to construct the name of her new fitness center, Byklyn. Further,
she hired ample number of staff such as general manager, master instructor, bookkeeper and
more to run the business in an efficient manner (Nah and Siau, 2020). Due to the lockdown, she
has to impose temporally closure on the studio but as the situation is normalizing she is looking
forward for different options in order to open the studio again. For this purpose, she has been
identified for different options such as arranging virtual classes, reducing the capacity, setting the
studio at some outdoor location far away from Byklyn. There is also last option of closing the
business. However, the business owner is not in the favor of closing the business. Each option
has its own advantages and disadvantages in respect of the studio. In order to run the business
during pandemic, she used to offer ample of benefits and promotional offers to clients. For this
purpose, she reduced down the membership price so that clients get attracted. Therefore, she

started to implement different options such as virtual classes, setting business at outdoor
environment, reducing capacity and more to keep the business running and earning significant
amount of profit.
Problem statement, plan of analysis:
COVID-19 caused issues for the business organizations across the world. It imposed
lockdown so that customers were not able to step out from their place to purchase the products.
Due to this, it was quite complex for the business entities to maintain significant amount of
profit. Further, it caused restrictions on movement of individuals, public gathering and more
(Nundy and et. al., 2021). Further, government also instructed fitness centers, hotels, restaurants,
pubs, resorts and more to close on temporally basis. It caused huge losses to such entities as they
were not able to earn necessary revenue even to meet with their day to day expenses. In present
context, it is analyzed that health and fitness industry is growing for some past years due to three
main reasons; firstly, public health related initiatives are being taken by organizations (Nundy
and et. al., 2021). Secondly, there is increase of per capital disposable income of households
within United Stated of America. Thirdly, the number of adults which are more concern about
the health has been increased from 211 million in 2014 to 214 million in 2019. In terms of
impact of COVID-19, workout and gyming was considered a good practice as it is important to
keep a person healthy and fit. But, now, people are likely to avoid visit gym and fitness centers
as there is high probability of getting infection (Cheung and et. al., 2021). The risk of getting
infected is perceives high in fitness centers as majority of the individuals are likely to share
similar equipments. After imposing the lockdown, most of the fitness centers started to operate
their center online through videoconferencing, Zoom and other such platforms like Face book,
YouTube, Instagram and more. However, certain fitness center owners were not likely to have
sufficient knowledge in order to operate fitness classes virtually.
During the lockdown, people become conscious about their health hence, they start to
keep track on their physical activities by using various fitness apps. For this purpose, they started
to download apps from Google play stores and Apple Inc’s app store (Zhang and Hayashi, 2020).
However, many fitness companies also launched their own fitness apps and online services to
deliver exercise and workout plans through online mediums. Further, they also started to provide

remote guidance and supervision which hamper the customer and owner relationship within the
fitness club industry. Due to increasing trend of virtual & online classes, it was quite complex for
the business owners of fitness centers to maintain personal interaction with their clients which is
hampering their ability to maintain long-term relationships with the clients profoundly (Khalid,
Okafor and Burzynska, 2021).
In context of Byklyn exercise bike fitness studio, they also faced numerous issues due to the
sudden outbreak. Due to the lockdown, people were not able to join their studio physically. For
this purpose, they have to close their activities on temporally basis that will further hamper their
existing level of sales and profit margin significantly (Vrontis and et. al., 2021). This business
was started by a female owner names as Glosser with limited amount of personal capital. She
employed adequate number of staff to get assistance in terms of operating the business in an
efficient manner. The lady has been planned to expand their business to leverage consistent
annual growth. But, COVID-19 pandemic fail her plan as now, it was even difficult to manage
the existing business. In early 2020, a promotional event was planned by Glosser names “ March
Challenge”. In this challenge, twenty rides need to be completed in thirty one days. Seventy
clients of the studio have been registered for the event. Suddenly, Glosser came to know about
the upcoming pandemic and she started to prepare for the worst on the basis of available
information. She initiated sanitization for the entire studio and started to follow other safety
measures. In march 2020, there was order to shut all non-essential business including fitness
centers to control the transmission of deadly virus. As a result, Glosser also had to close down
her business temporally to contribute in controlling the transmission of deadly virus. She urged
to the clients to continue with their membership (Galanakis and et. al., 2021). For the period of
lockdown, she announced a special discount where unlimited visit price drop from $189 per
month to $89 per month. Further, she also started to offer discount in terms of extra month of
low pricing on paying every month membership fees. The main idea behind adopting the new
promotional and discounted pricing strategy is to maintain steady cash flow in the business to
fulfill day to day expenses (Khalid, Okafor and Burzynska, 2021). Therefore, it was quite
difficult for Glosser to manage pre-defined level of sales and profit margin during the pandemic
time. Although she was planning for expansion but she has to struggle even to earn adequate
cash flow to fulfill daily expenses. During tough time, she put utmost efforts to keep the business
running and managing necessary cash flow to pay fulltime payment to her staff members.

Dealing with the impact of COVID-19 pandemic was not easy for the respective company as it
hampered their existing operations, revenue and profit margin as Glosser need to offer promotion
and discounted price to the customers to keep the business running during COVID-19 pandemic.
Analysis and Findings:
Byklyn is fitness bike exercise studio that is offers ample of fitness related facilities to the
individuals. This business was started by a female owner names as Glosser with limited amount
of personal capital. She employed adequate number of staff to get assistance in terms of
operating the business in an efficient manner (Yu, Park and Hyun, 2021). The lady has been
planned to expand their business to leverage consistent annual growth. But, COVID-19
pandemic fail her plan as now, it was even difficult to manage the existing business. It is
analyzed that the pandemic affected health and fitness industry profoundly (Pikoos and et. al.,
2020). Government placed restrictions and closure on operation on fitness centers along with
other hospitality organizations. This directly affected the revenue of health and fitness based
entities. Before COVID-19, it was consider wise to do exercise but after the pandemic risk of
getting infection was really high in the fitness centers due to huge public gathering at a place and
sharing of same equipments. After imposing lockdown across the nation, ample of fitness centers
started to run online classes. They started to give virtual sessions so that people do not need to
interact with each-other physically (Galanakis and et. al., 2021). In this situation, some fitness
centers used to perform well in terms of virtual setting as they are likely to practice virtual
classes for longer time. But, certain centers are still struggling to operate online classes.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was complex for Byklyn to maintain their existing
level of revenue and profit. It is analyzed that Glosser, the owner of Byklyn, exercise bike fitness
center was really good at marketing and promotion of the products. Although, there is extreme
competition within the health and fitness industry of the respective country but she manages to
earn significant amount of profit by maintaining differentiation (Goswami and Chouhan, 2021).
For this purpose, Glosser likely to run ample of promotional activities like offering membership,
discounts and more. In order to sustain in the competitive environment for longer duration, she is
likely to adopt numerous promotional offers. These offers are also helpful in maintaining long-
term relationships with clients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult for the

respective entity to maintain their operations as earlier due to ample of restrictions (Japutra and
Situmorang, 2021). After planning the expansion, Glosser has to change her plan as she could
not expand business in such uncertain time. Therefore, she decided to run a promotional plan
where she used to offer ample of promotional discounts over membership so that more and more
people get ready to become the member of the fitness center. Further, she put significant efforts
in order to retain the existing clients within the company. For this purpose, she used to provide
discounts and other such benefits so that existing clients stay within the entity. In this regard,
Glosser reduced down the cost of membership card significantly (Prasad and et. al., 2020).
Further, she also find out another options to manage the profit of business. Additionally, she got
advantage of a scheme run by the government authorities for helping small business units to cope
up with negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic. Here, government used to offer help in form
of grants and subsidies to small businesses. In this light, Glosser applied to receive necessary
support for business rent, utensils, payroll and more (Ho, 2020). Here, she was looking forward
to get federal administered business loan of 47000 $ with an aim to cover wages of employees
for nearly eight weeks. Here, the name of program was Paycheck Protection Program which was
started by the government to help the business entities to reopen their business. As the situation
going normalize, Byklyn needs to open the business with less capacity. Now, they need to run
fitness center as per the guidelines of government. Also, there is requirement to take care of
hygine and sanitization properly which will incur additional cost for the respective entity.
Further, Glosser started to use virtual platform in terms of providing fitness instructions to
clients. Also, she found that using virtual platforms were more convenient and feasible for both
business owners as well as fitness clients (Japutra and Situmorang, 2021). However, the impact
of COVID-19 pandemic has been reduced down to a minimum level but still people are not
having completely positive attitude towards working out in fitness centers. This will might affect
future progress and expansion of the respective fitness studio.
Proposed solutions to the problem:
Recommendations (500)
After going through with above-mentioned information, it is found that the respective
company is facing numerous issues due to the adverse impact of COVID-19 pandemic. Here,

pandemic is affecting sales, revenue as well as customer relationships of the entity profoundly.
With an aim to run the business consistently, there is requirement to follow suitable
recommendations which are mentioned as under:
 It is suggested that the Byklyn needs to do planning in order to deal with uncertain
situations in better manner. For this purpose, they need to evaluate the future
circumstances and structure suitable strategies accordingly. Here, planning is useful in
terms of minimizing the future uncertainties so that the company can easily deal with
sudden impacts of unprecedented events. This will help in covering up the additional
expenses occur while facing the impacts of uncertain events like COVID-19 pandemic.
 There is requirement to maintain proper communication with team members by following
suitable tools like emails, videoconferencing, virtual meetings and more. It is important
to keep the employees familiar about the current situation of the company so that they
can contribute in terms of improving the performance of the respective entity
significantly.
 After COVID-19 pandemic, virtual platforms have gained popularity. Now, fitness
industry is highly depended on virtual platforms due to shift in customer trends. Rather
visiting to fitness centers, now people are likely to exercise at their own place with the
help of mentors and online apps (Savage and et. al., 2020). By following this trend, the
respective fitness studio also needs to follow virtual and online practices where they can
easily interact with clients. For this purpose, they need to hire fitness coach who can
handle multiple clients through virtual platforms. Along with this, they can also launch
their own application where they will provide fitness related tips to the clients. This will
help them in stay connected with the customers to maintain strong relation.
 COVID-19 affected the bond between fitness centers and their clients as majority of the
people have been shifted towards online platforms. In this situation, maintaining regular
interaction is really important (Alam and Abdurraheem, 2021). For this purpose, the
respective entity needs to follow necessary online tools and platforms in order to stay
connected with their clients. Here, they need to take the feedbacks and suggestions of the
clients and need to work on such suggestions to improve overall customer experience.
This will strengthen their bond with clients and help in retaining the clients for longer
duration.

 Post COVID-19, people are in panic to visit to public places with huge public gathering
(Dunton and et. al., 2020). In this situation, Byklyn needs to make people aware that they
are following all the necessary guidelines and measured of government to provide safe
and protective environment to their clients. For this purpose, they need to maintain
transparency in order to gain trust of their clients in significant manner.
Limitations of the study
In the study, there is lack of resources in terms of funds and other equipments that might
affect the overall outcomes of the project. Further, the entire project has been completed based
on theoretical background. It is based on qualitative study where main focus is on developing in-
depth and detailed knowledge about the topic. Therefore, there is lack of objectivity in the
current project that might affect authenticity of the results of the study.
Scope for further research
There is also scope for conducting future research in terms of developing significant
knowledge base regarding the topic. The current project is based on impacts of COVID-19
pandemic on health and fitness industry. It is a broad topic as the pandemic has affected ample of
business organizations worldwide. Conducting research in future will prove useful in terms of
developing significant amount of knowledge & information regarding the topic to undertake
suitable steps for further betterment.

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