I NTERV I E W
We talk about our clubs being welcoming places with a joyful atmosphere. That sense of joy is key if we want everyone to enjoy the benefits of working out
Sondre Gravir
SATS is on a mission to help people of all ages become healthier and happier, with a focus on creating a product where the barriers to entry are low and the value to society high. Its CEO speaks to Kate Cracknell What’s the SATS vision? Ever since SATS was founded 25 years ago, its philosophy has been to make fitness available to everyone. We talk about our clubs being welcoming places with a joyful atmosphere. That sense of joy is key. If we want everyone to enjoy the benefits of working out, we have to take on the role of inspirer. We have to create low barriers to entry and a product that’s fun. Fitness isn’t about the very trained, very fit young people you still see in commercials across our sector. It’s about offering a product that really engages and activates the whole population, and that’s what we aim to do at SATS. We want to help everyone, of all ages, become healthier and happier. This vision has implications for our product offering, of course, which has to be very diverse to ensure we’re a great choice for the super-fit 25-yearold guy or girl in the city centre of Stockholm, as well as for the 77-year-old who wants to stay active and in good physical shape as they age. It’s also vital that our vision is strongly embedded in our culture, because in a people business like ours, the customer experience is reliant on the engagement and dedication of employees. We work hard to ensure our vision is lived in our clubs every day. If you go into any SATS club and ask even a part-time employee, he or she will really give strong examples of our vision in practice.
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Issue 11 2021 ©Cybertrek 2021
Where are your clubs located? We operate in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland (see The SATS estate). Within those markets, we’re very focused on creating strong footprints in the capitals and other large cities where we operate. This will continue to be our strategy moving forward: we will not be a single-club, single-city operator. We want multiple clubs in each city. This cluster strategy is important, because our member value is based on our people using multiple clubs. A typical SATS member regularly works out in least at two or three different clubs. In our Stockholm city centre cluster, as an example, that number would be closer to four. We want there to be a club close to where you live, a club close to where you work and a club close to where your friends live. We want the barrier to enjoying a great training experience to be low. The other part of our cluster strategy is that across these clubs, you should be able to enjoy the whole product experience. Let’s take group training as an example, which is a central part of our offering; around 50 per cent of our member base are group class members, which is possible thanks to our flexible, modular membership. In a typical week in Stockholm or Oslo, across the cluster you’ll have around 3,000 classes on the schedule. It’s a massive offering and – even though our clubs are typically around 2,500–3,000sq m with one or two group exercise studios, a separate
