Case: Body Power- go to market

Robert Pereira after taking over the reins from his father in 1998, with his wife was toying with the idea of
starting a business venture to manufacture body strengthening equipment. A few of their friends came
forward by offering them financial as well as managerial support. They finally decided to start a company
manufacturing a set of wellness/fitness equipment. That was how they set up the unit in Goa in 2006, a
place which was well connected with all parts of the country. The company was named Body Power Ltd
(BPL). Mr Robert was made the Chairman. Vinit Ohri, a person with proven leadership qualities was made
the Managing Director of the firm. Pradeep Rane, a qualified technical person with enough number of years
of experience in the industry, was appointed as the General Manager. The company invested Rs. 80 lakhs
on plant and machinery, to be used for manufacturing and assembling fitness products. Required man
power was also put in place. The company decided to have a good mix of products in its product portfolio.
The company used the help of a consulting firm, to collect data and information about the various fitness
products in the market, fitness and exercising habits of Indians in general as well as the performance of
various players in the market.

Product categories and industry performance

One of the key product categories in the wellness segment was fitness equipment. It was found that the
fitness equipments industry was unorganized and not much data was available about manufacturing and
marketing of fitness equipment. But, broadly, the products in this category fell under (1) Selectorized
Equipments (2) Plate Loaded equipments (3) Multi Gym equipments (4) Benches and racks equipments
(5) Cardio Fitness Equipments (6) Spa equipments and (7) fitness accessories . The brands of BPL were
known by the brand name- Body shape. BPL‘s sales performance in the recent years, as against the
competing brands are given below.

Table-2: Sales of various brands of fitness equipments (Rs. in lakhs) in 2010-2011, in South and Western
India.

Products and Body shape Health Muscle fitness Fit King Relax Excer
brands works
Selectorized 250.5 361.6 278.6 159.6 194.4 209.8
Equipments.

Plate Loaded 452.5 424.5 393.6 266.8 183.4 213.9

equipments
Multi Gym 354.5 382.9 406.5 302.6 194.6 214.2
equipments
Benches and 221.6 348.5 207.6 171.5 126.2 97.7
racks
equipment
Cardio Fitness Nil 474.6 556.2 324.5 252.4 122.6
Equipments
Spa equipments Nil 227.4 194.5 124.7 108.8 115.9
Fitness 285.9 238.5 279.6 179.4 117.5 152.6
Accessories

The market growth rate of various product categories for the last few years were as follows: Selectorized
Equipment (4%) Plate loaded equipment (12%) Multi Gym equipment (12%) Benches and racks
equipment (3%) Cardio Equipment (14%) Spa equipment (11%) and fitness accessories (5%)

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 Some of the regional players imported the basic components from abroad and did the fabrication or
assembling of products. It was not very difficult to get good quality component parts for fabrication. BPL
used the best quality component for fabricating their products. BPL had been marketing its product only in
South and Western India market. Now, after 6 years in the industry, BPL was thinking of launching some of
its existing products nationally, as well as developing certain improved products in some of the categories.

Table-3: Sales in present year ( 2011-12) . Sales growth (in %) of various brands over previous year in South
and Western India.

Products and Body shape Health Muscle fitness Fit King Relax Excer
brands works
Selectorized 2.4 6.6 7.0 1.6 9.4 -2.8
Equipments.
Plate Loaded 15.5 -2.5 3.0 6.8 1.0 9.0
equipments
Multi Gym 5.5 6.5 8.9 -3.6 9.6 2.5
equipments
Benches and 2.6 4.5 4.6 7.5 -2.9 5.7
racks
equipment
Cardio Fitness Nil 4.6 -5.0 -2.5 5.4 2.5
Equipments
Spa equipments Nil 2.4 9.5 8.7 9.8 8.9
Fitness 10.9 3.5 7.0 -3.5 4.5 5.6
Accessories
The market growth rate showed an increase of about 1 % over that of the previous year (2010-2011), in all
product categories, during the present year ( 2011- 2012) .

This case let prepared by Dr. Simon George, for classroom discussions.

Appendix-1 : Evaluation by customers of the existing multi gym product (Pro MTG) .

Factors Body Health Muscle Fit king Relax Excer

shape works fitness
Ease of operation 7 8 8 6 7 5
After sales service 7 6 5 5 4 7
Multi tasking 7 8 9 5 6 5
Brand name 7 8 8 6 7 6
Design aesthetics 8 9 8 7 7 5
Speed of impact on 8 7 7 4 5 7
body
Price 6 6 7 8 6 7
Space occupied 7 7 8 7 6 6
* The scores are on a scale of 1-10, 1 being very poor to 10 being very good.

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