Digital fitness
Practice this advanced strategic decision case interview question from McKinsey in the Gym chain sector. Includes detailed problem prompt, clarifying questions, structured framework, and expert recommendation. Part of ProHub's 835+ consulting case library.
ProHub Comment
This is a classic 'impact of trend' case examining how digital disruption threatens a traditional brick-and-mortar business model. The case requires candidates to assess competitive threats, customer behavior shifts, and develop strategic responses. The structure emphasizes understanding differentiation points between digital and physical fitness offerings, analyzing market data, and evaluating investment decisions.
Estimated Time
36 minutes
Difficulty
Hard
Source
PeterK
40
/ 100
DoubleSweat is a national low-end gym chain with 2,400 clubs across the U.S. They’re concerned about the sky-rocketed demand for digital fitness (e.g. live-streamed, on-demand, and pre-recorded online fitness content) fuelled by the pandemic. Their target audience - first-time and casual gym goers (primarily Millennials and Gen Z) - are among the most interested in digital fitness options. DoubleSweat’s CEO has hired your team to assess how digital fitness will affect their business over the next five years and what the chain should do about it.
Clarifying Information
- The global digital fitness market is to grow from $11B to $79B in 2021-28
- In 2020 71k health-and-fitness smartphone apps were launched globally
- The U.S. market of gym and health clubs fell off the cliff from $43B to $31B in 2019-22 due to the pandemic with 28% of the clubs shutting down permanently
- DoubleSweat doesn’t offer any digital fitness solutions
- 10% of the client’s clubs are corporate-owned and the rest is franchisees
- DoubleSweat has 17M members (2022) and offers one of the cheapest memberships in the market - $10/month (and $25/month for premium plan)