Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Weight Watchers and General Motors
Weight Watchers has faced a number of issues in the past several years, many of which are highlighted in the case study for this assignment. The company was able to reach a financial high point earlier this decade in 2011 when it recorded a record-breaking 1.8 billion in revenues. However, the company's finances have slowly dwindled ever since then, culminating in losses for seven straight quarters and low stock prices at the beginning of 2015. The core of the problems it was facing were relatively straightforward. The weight loss industry was changing, and Weight Watchers was having difficult changing along with it. Specifically, the company had troubles modernizing its business model to account for the digital age as represented by increasing online options for weight loss. This fact was compounded by the reality that there was greater competition, including that from organizations whose primary business was to capitalize on digital technology to attract customers. Technologies such as mobile devices, mobile applications, cloud computing, and social media had made considerable strides in the way that people were monitoring and attempting to lose weight. Weight Watchers, however, had had only marginal success using these technologies, and faced the undesirable situation in which its methods were becoming rapidly outdated.
Financial Analysis: Vision/Mission
The vision of Weight Watchers has always been fairly basic in nature. The company was designed to help people lose weight while also becoming more healthy, and happier, in the process. To that end, there is very little about the company's core mission that has changed since it was founded in the 1960's. What has changed, however, is the way that it can achieve this objective. The times and the technologies that support them have changed. Another vital part of the mission of Weight Watchers is its communal approach to enabling people to lose weight. The company initially facilitated this form of talk therapy, in which it held group meetings for members to share their experience with the weight loss process in physical environments. Eventually it would allow members to interact with one another online to still achieve its core value proposition of utilizing a community approach to weight loss. The company has expanded its business to include online applications, product sales, online memberships, and food items in restaurants. All of these entities simply help it to fulfill its primary objective of helping people lose weight.
Financial Analysis: Online vs. In-Store
Weight Watchers has gradually shifted the focus of its enterprise from one focused on physical locations and the products and services it offers there to one which utilizes digital resources such as the internet, the cloud, and mobile technologies. A look at some of its core financial data supports this fact and provides significant implications for the future of its financial prowess. In 2009 the company's online revenues were $196.0. By 2015, however, those figures had more than doubled to end the year at $437.4. This fact is all the more significant because during the same time period, substantial portions of this organization's revenues declined in conjunction...
Product sales decreased from $251.4 to $169.1. Similarly, licensing, franchise royalties and other decreased from 147.7 to $128.9. Even meeting fees, which traditionally were the most capital form of revenue generation, were reduced from $817.5 to $744.6 from 2009 to 2015. These figures clearly reflect the fact that this industry in general, and Weight Watcher's business in particular, has largely transitioned from one based on physical environments to digital ones.
Summary of Analytical Conclusions
The financial analysis has made it clear that the future of Weight Watchers is in utilizing the new technologies that consumers are embracing more and more in their daily lives. These technologies including cloud computing, mobile applications, smartphones, tablets, and the internet. Weight Watcher's online activity has demonstrated the most significant growth as a revenue stream out of all of its means of generating revenue. Therefore, the company should focus on ways to integrate online activity -- which is largely facilitated by mobile applications today -- with those that occur in physical environments. The synthesis of these two environments should readily assist the company in not only staying current with the times, but also in delivering the most viable means of communicating about weight loss to people today. Combining these two approaches is imperative to the long-term success of this company and a way to keep its brand relevant throughout the digital age. Furthermore, dedicating itself to online activity is the primary way that this entity can stay abreast of its competition, which is also utilizing technology more and more. The financial data demonstrate that the online audience is the largest growing one for Weight Watchers, which would do well to incorporate facets of its online approach with its traditional physical ones to synthesize these two and broaden its business accordingly.
First Recommendation
Perhaps the most readily available way that Weight Watchers can combine its online business with that of the conventional bricks and mortar world is in utilizing more mobile and internet technology in its group meetings. It is critical for this company to not abandon its meetings in physical environments. However, it should look to increasingly supplement these physical meeting with a number of technologies from the digital medium which is providing one of its strongest revenue streams. It is essential to encourage program participants to interact with one another online in virtual meeting sessions in addition to physical ones. In this way, participants can take advantage of the instantaneous, continuous connectivity for which the internet is known. That connectivity is frequently facilitated by mobile devices in the form of various apps (applications). Leveraging these technologies should help Weight Watchers to continue to increase the revenues from its online earnings. It should also help those enrolled in its programs continually stay abreast of developments with their weight and health. Also, it will allow them to remain constantly in communication with their larger supporting network (which is one of the core elements of Weight Watchers' mission). The…
The first recommendation for GM is to continue with its strategy of downsizing its vehicles and making them more competitive with its newfound customer base. As previously noted, that customer base values fuel efficiency and performance over size and features. The effectiveness of this approach is obvious, and should serve as inspiration for GM to continue along this strategic path. The company should continue to expand on the sort of downsizing that it began in earnest with Buick, but apply it to other lines of vehicles as well. By making its vehicles smaller and more fuel efficient, the company should continue the trend it evidenced in 2014 when it completed the year with sales rising five percent and several vehicles settings sales records. Also, the company should continue to produce new models of cars that address the needs of current consumers that have driven the preceding sales trend. In particular, it should pinpoint these innovations in terms of electric cars and hybrid vehicles, which generally conform to the same characteristics that the other new models GM has unveiled in the past couple of years have.
Second Recommendation
The other recommendation for GM is to reinstate its process for manufacturing vehicles -- from their initial design to the actually building of these crafts -- which it abandoned earlier this decade to get its products to market quicker. There very well could have been a relationship between these time-saving measures and some of the safety hazards that resulted in the vehicle recalls which caused the company such bad publicity and high costs. More than ever, the company needs to ensure that all vehicles are rigorously inspected and created with the greatest regard for safety. Specifically, there were quality control measures that were reduced to hasten the time in which vehicles were cleared for the market. These include lengthy time periods in which populous review boards deliberated about vehicle details and decisions. The company should go back to using this approach for safety. Implicit in this recommendation is the need to make personal accountability part of the company culture for GM, so that future situations for product recalls because of haste will not occur.
Weight Watchers was founded in 1963 by Jean Nidtech, in Queens, NY, and has built up a track record of over 40 years of helping people lose weight. The company has been built on the philosophy that "dieting is just one part of long-term weight management," and therefore has built an entire weight loss system around its food products. The company has been able to grow to popularity on the
, 2005). There are no storage considerations, either, since there is no tangible product (Dansinger, et al., 2005). The Weight Watchers dinners and prepackaged food that are offered have storage considerations, though, because it must be warehoused and then shipped off to stores that request it and put it on their shelves (Dansinger, et al., 2005). Since these foods are not required for the program, though, it is difficult to classify
Gastric Bypass Weight Management 3 UD Physical/Biological Physiological Consequences and Health Risks of Excess Body Weight Description of Concrete Experience: I chose to have gastric bypass surgery because I was dealing with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes due to my weight. Over time, my weight had just continued to creep up until it reached a point that made it really dangerous for me. Additionally, back pain, knee pain, and joint pain
health and quality improvement. Specifically it will discuss how to manage weight with proper diet and exercise, including the quality improvement process of how to achieve a healthy weight. As with many people in the United States today, I have experienced a weight gain, and this seems to be increasingly common in college. My weight is out of control, and I want and need to improve my health with
Dieting Factors Americans spend billions of dollars on weight-loss products and programs every year. Despite this, most people do not lose the amount they would like or, if they do, regain the weight after a short period of time. The problem lies with following specific fads that emphasize one type of eating pattern. The low-carbohydrate diet, which has been popular off-and-on-again since the mid-1800s, exemplifies such a diet program. Studies do
Provided the counselors and instructors are charismatic, this might be the ideal way to generate initial 'buzz' about the center. Sending out free coupons for free sessions, and offering free 'teaser' yoga or Pilates classes in public venues (like on the Boardwalk during the summer or an in-store location like the mall) can generate publicity and interest. For fitness, marketing should be experiential as well as about selling a