S.A.T.S.

Company name: S.A.T.S

Clubs: 110 (+ 41 franchises)
Locations: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland
Members: 250.000
Employees: 5.500
Turnover: € 145 M. (2008)

Owner: Tryg i Danmark A/S

With more than 110 wholly owned health clubs and 41 franchises in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, S.A.T.S is by far the largest health club chain in Scandinavia. Measured by its 240.000 active members, S.A.T.S comes in second in Europe. S.A.T.S has grown rapidly over the years with the increased interest for health and wellness.

Business Challenges

For almost a decade, S.A.T.S health clubs had been operated under country specific business rules and policies and with four different IT structures and membership management systems. Not long after the acquisition by Nordic Capital, S.A.T.S new management team, headed by CEO Andreas Göthberg, realized that only by streamlining both IT-structures and corporate business processes would the wellness titan deliver results consistent with its potential. In order to implement new sets of rules and revised processes, S.A.T.S would need to carry out a full system migration from four different systems to one comprehensive and centralized solution.

The key operational objectives were:

Decentralize customer service while improving service and data quality
Centralize product management, reporting etc.
Improve business processes (no redundancies, one time input and validation of data)
Increase security and minimize fraud

Tender Process

S.A.T.S tender process involved 15 European suppliers. Of these, four suppliers were asked to respond to S.A.T.S' 150 pages Request For Proposal. S.A.T.S finally chose eXerp as software supplier and ClubLead as the new centralized and chain-wide IT-platform. No other product supported the extensive business process requirements and the volume of S.A.T.S.

Adam Erritzøe, Scandinavian Project Manager, S.A.T.S:
"eXerp’s solution represented the fastest way to realize the benefits implied by the new business processes.
- ClubLead will last longer than the others.
- Clublead is far more flexible, modular and scalable compared to other solutions.
- ClubLead is an open system that can easily be integrated with third party specialty tools."

Solution

In particular the S.A.T.S' requirements related to:

Administrative savings
Minimized risk of fraud and leakages
Improved customer knowledge
Security with maximum flexibility on corporate level (Flexible and secure offering framework)
Reduction on IT infrastructure cost

ClubLead is now implemented in all S.A.T.S countries and powering head office and more than 110 clubs. The installation at S.A.T.S has about 0.7 million active and inactive members. During the last year ClubLead processed:

15.5 million financial transactions.
9 million check-ins (visits).
4.5 million bookings.

Aleš Zobec, Member Lifecycle Director, S.A.T.S:
"Flexibility, scalability and openness in the core business software is essential for a large, multinational fitness company like S.A.T.S. ClubLead provides just that extra level of flexibility and scalability in its fundamental features and technology."

Hard Savings

S.A.T.S has already identified substantial benefits by implementing ClubLead:

Reduction of administrative costs by a significant staff reduction at Head Office.
Decentralized handling of subscriptions and improved reporting.
Significant reduction of IT infrastructure costs
Reduction in administrative costs (and improved level of service)
Self service booking online and at kiosks in the clubs releases staff to perform other more value-adding activities. (Previous eXerp research shows that between 40 and 50 hours are saved/released per month in clubs with an average of 1200 members)

Soft Savings

Reporting
- Most reports are generated automatically by the system. Reports are now time-safe and two-step closing is supported.

Group X planning
- Schedules are entered once (compared with up to seven times before)

Improved security/ leakage prevention:
- Functional integration of member administration, electronic Point-of-Sales and EFT makes it impossible to issue memberships without proper payment.
- Centralized maintenance of products, prices and discounts assures that all products are sold a right prices
- The system asks for documentation every time a discounted membership (student, corporate etc.) is sold
- The system prompts members to show renewed documentation at preset intervals
- Having a single, central database makes it possible to check member’s rights to enter any club in the group

CRM
- Entry& exit questionnaires improves knowledge on members
- New tools and improved data quality enables retention managers, instructors, PT’s and marketing staff to follow up on members and give special offers to selected groups of members

Inventory management
- Inventory management reduces loss and improves retail margins

Eirik Fiskum, Group CFO, S.A.T.S:
”We are now able to generate instant and time safe reports on KPI’s and subscription evolution for all our clubs. Overall ClubLead supports our management reporting. It really saves a lot of time and minimizes the room for errors.”