Gym Business Management

admin — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:42:19 +0000

A gym business in one way or another is decidedly part of show business. Making the client feel good and look good is very much a part of the endeavor. The gym is typically placed within the hospitality industry.

According to Oxford Dictionary, hospitality stands for a “friendly and liberal reception of guests or strangers”. Indeed, the chief endeavor of the gym is to be friendly and helpful in terms of fitness services, offer desirable work out atmosphere and food as tangible products, and clean rest rooms and spacious corridors for comfort. The concept of a gym was one of “temporary abode”; a place to burn those excess body fats. The business domain of the gyms appeared to be a fusion, an amalgam between the hospitality industry and show business.

The General Manager of a gm must know the basics of managing gyms. Management is characterized of the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization through the deployment and manipulation of resources. Functionally, it is an action of measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting same initial plan and as the action taken to reach the gym’s goals. From this perspective, five functions of management are identified. These functions are planning, organizing, leading, coordinating, and controlling. As the general manager of the gym, he or she constitutes these five functions.

Strategic planning is one specific type of planning. In the strategic plan, the present status of the gym business can be identified, future plans can be formulated and strategies to be able to accomplish the future plans can also be identified. With the gym’s problem, strategic planning can be used in order to identify possible strategies and make necessary changes.

On the other hand, organizing is establishing the internal organizational structure of the gym business. The focus is on division, coordination, and control of tasks and the flow of information within the gym. Moreover, managers distribute responsibility and authority to job holders in this function of management. In order for the gym to have organized functions, the General Manager should have good organizing skills. It should be realized what organization style the gym needs. To be more specialized, the gym should decentralize the management making each division more accountable for their actions.

Leading includes setting direction for the gym, groups and individuals and also influence people to follow that direction. Leading function establishes strategic direction such as vision, values, mission and /or goals and championing methods of gym performance management to pursue that direction. A leadership skill is very significant in a gym in order for it to run smoothly.
Lastly, controlling is a four-step process of establishing performance standards based on the gym’s objectives, measuring and reporting actual performance, comparing the two, and taking corrective or preventive action as necessary. Moreover, it includes checking the gym’s systems, processes and structures to reach effectively and efficiently reach goals and objectives. This includes ongoing collection of feedback, and monitoring and adjustment of systems, processes and structures accordingly.

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Gym Business Plan

admin — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:30:13 +0000

A competent gym business plan needs strategy to make sure that everything goes well in the gym. Through the use of strategic management everything done in the gym will be well organized and no detail is being left out. A complete gym business plan needs strategic management to make sure that the gym is doing well internally.

The term strategic management originates from the Greek language, where the word means the art of a general. The person who makes strategies is the strategist who is the leader of an army. Strategic management decisions have multi-functional and multi-business consequences, and this kind of decision require broad consideration of the gym’s external and internal environments, and it may affect the gym’s chance of prosperity. The strategic management paradigm is built on the notion that strategic decision making results from intentional actions in the name of individual or collective purpose. The paradigm accords central importance to the cognitive elements of understanding and intention as basic drivers of strategic choice.

A gym business plan is critical to processes of strategy formulation, for example, which require gym managers to envision and prioritize future states that are appropriate and proper. Similarly, a gym business plan is critical to environmental analysis, which requires gym managers to forecast and make predictions. These tasks all depend on individual cognitive capabilities and on cognitive processes such as attention, perception, reflection, and understanding. It is important to know what strategy is about, what can it do help the gym prosper, what will happen if not used properly, what are the advantages and disadvantages of having a strategy. A gym business plan assimilates the gym’s major target; policies and rules; decisions and sequences of action into organized whole. It can apply at all levels of the gym and pertain to any of the functional areas of gym management.
For a gym to meet the expectations of its stakeholders, it should make every effort to realize goals such as cost reductions, competitive advantage through fitness industry analysis and assessment, cooperative and competitive moves for winning, resources development and deployment, organizational learning and knowledge creation, and building links with other gyms in exchanging resources and information. That is, all these vital dimensions should be incorporated into the gym business plan.
In accomplishing its business strategy, the gym generally has three strategic options including market transactions, organizational mode, and strategic alliances. The first two correspond to market and hierarchies in terms of Transaction cost economics, and the third refers to hybrid structures or quasi-internalization. Nevertheless, these modes of transactions intermingle as gyms use a variety of approaches simultaneously and switch from one form to another. Yet, knowing each type of strategic option well would enhance the understanding of gym operations and their consequences.

The degree to which a gym business plan is formulated and implemented is a function of changes and developments in the economy. Central to these developments in recent years is the process of globalization or increased global interdependence. Gym business activity does not just happen. It is the result of conscious decisions made by public and private businessmen in various countries whose usual major interest is in profiting from activities in various other countries.