GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA
A Digital India Initiative
GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA
Background:
The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has built over 85 gyms which provides gym services such as strength and conditioning, weightlifting, cardio, zumba, combat centres, and similar other services. The vision of PCMC gyms is to provide the people of its area easy and affordable access to fitness centres. Through its Public Gym Services, PCMC wanted to be the first urban local body to have setup easily accessible gym facilities, at such a large scale, for its residents at highly concessional rates. One of the oldest PCMC gym running is 39 years old and was started in the year 1983. The PCMC gyms are partly managed by the PCMC staff and partly managed by private parties. Even in the case of the privately managed PCMC gyms, there is a cap on the maximum chargeable membership fees for the gym operators.
The PCMC wanted to understand how beneficial the gyms have been for its people and what are the areas of improvement to make it a successful first of its kind public gym model. However, the challenge was that there was no real-time data due to absence of computerized systems and databases. All the records that were maintained by the concerned Gym authorities and the PCMC were all handwritten logged in registers, providing very less scope for effective and detailed data analysis.
The PCMC gyms which was started with the intention of public welfare and maximising its outreach whilst promoting healthy lifestyle, actually had very less clarity as to how effective its Gym model has been so far. To understand its impact the PCMC decided to assess the current state of the gyms in the PCMC area and prepare an analysis report along with a recommendation report for determining the action plan.
PCMC Gym analysis study
The study was launched in the month of September 2021 and followed the following procedure:
Assessment parameters:
At this stage, out of the 85 PCMC gyms, we have currently received entries from 75 gyms and the analysis was conducted based on these datasets. The data collection process involved lot of parameters, out of which Facility Area (sq ft) was shortlisted as the key indicator which can be used as a centre point to classify Gyms in to 3 categories. PCMC gyms were categorised into 3 types based on their size:
This classification helped us in better understanding the data points and co-relating them to understand the gaps. Also, categorising the gyms helped in understanding the ideal requirements of a gym, popularity of each type of gym, and preference of the customers, whether the ‘Small’ gym had more footfalls or ‘Large’ gyms had more customers. Further, a comparison of how does PCMC gyms compare with the Benchmark in each classification provides clarity about the Gaps.
In the following chart you can see the number of gyms in each category, i.e., Small, Medium, and Large (Fig 1)
The following chart depicts the number of regular customers in each category, i.e., Small, Medium and Large (Fig 2)
In below figure, we can understand the shortage of trainers when compared to the benchmark
Going forward, the PCMC can utilize the data points to construct a successful business model for its gyms by addressing the gaps. Medium and Large gyms are the better segments to invest time and resources, and where possible Small Gyms can be converted into one Medium or Large gym to increase the utilization rates of their facilities.