Weight Watchers and Number Case Study

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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success using these technologies, and faced the undesirable situation in which its methods were becoming rapidly outdated.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 with the preceding increase in online revenues.

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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….....

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