Before attempting this mini-task you should go through lectures for Weeks 1-4. 

This Mini-Task is due by Friday March 22, 11:55 PM. Penalty for late submission – 10% for each day delayed. Word limit – 800 words (barring graphs/tables). File type – PDF. This mini- task is worth 10% of the grade. Total points – 20.

Consider the following scenario.

From January 2020 as CoViD-19 began to spread around the world, it became apparent that it may affect many businesses. For this  week’s mini-task, consider the context of Fitness Fitness, a chain of fitness centres in Australia. They offer personalized (small-group) strength training, cardio and pilates  classes. Due to Covid-19 restrictions classifying gyms as non- essential services, they have faced the problem of stagnant growth and dwindling memberships. They also face competition from other chain-format gyms such as Anytime Fitness.

The head of Australia operations, George Flooks, has decided to commission a small-scale project to better understand how they can combat such challenges and what measures/innovations they can implement to grow their customer base. To solve  this problem, they have hired you as the Marketing Research Analyst. George has the following Management Decision Problem (MDP) –

“What services can we offer to grow our customer base?”

For this mini-task, you first decide to design a pilot exploratory study to understand more about the industry.

1.    For this part, you should first research on the Gym & Fitness Centres in Australia (Hint: You will find industry reports in IBISWorld. This is part of Monash’sstudent research facilities available at https://guides.lib.monash.edu/subject-databases/buseco. Search for an Industry Report on “Gyms and Fitness Centres in Australia” in IBISWorld). Share 3 insights on Fitness First’s performance within this industry. (Hint: Remember to add the report as part of your references!). (5 points)

2.   To get more up-to-date information, search for recent Google search trends (https://trends.google.com.au/) for Fitness First for the past 6 months. Compare their performance with their closest competitor “Anytime Fitness”. Share the corresponding Google Trends graph. Briefly describe the pattern you observe in the graph.