An application of a customer-centric innovation approach in the health industry: The case for video streaming in group fitness classes in German fitness centers

In the dynamic environment of increasing customer expectations and fierce price competition it is hard for health service providers to keep constant service quality, not to mention improve it, considering the increasing cost of labour and services, while sustaining the customer relationship. On the other hand, with the emergence of mobile devices, cloud-based services and big data, new capabilities arise for transforming health services towards cost reduction, individualization, and even gaining a competitive advantage. This paradigm motivates a number of business-to-customer (B2C) service-level innovations in the health industry based on information and communication technologies (ICT). In this work, we present the results of a study we conducted among 522 gym members in Germany. The goal of the survey was to identify market opportunities for service-level improvements and validate them among gym members empirically. During the standard innovation process, we identified video streaming of trainings as a potential solution. We could furthermore prove a positive relationship between the participation of group fitness classes and customer satisfaction, as well as significant interest in technology-based innovation in the fitness industry.