Senerio 1:

Your work for Amazing Projects and Sons (Amazing Project). Your manager asked you to visit the General Manager of Bounce Fitness in the Sydney Centre. The General Manager has contacted Amazing Project because Amazing Projects completed a shop fit out next door to the Fitness Centre. The shop owner was very impressed and told the Bounce Fitness staff how happy she is with the fit out and with the professionalism of Amazing Project contractors. So that General Manager of Bounce Fitness Sydney Centre called Amazing Projects and ask to have someone come in and have a discussion. She has some ideas but needs professional opinion.

Your job is to learn about the Centre, discuss the centre's needs with the General Manager in the Sydney site, review services and clients; and any improvement needs. During your meeting you can also ask and identify and confirm a business improvement or a business problem.

On Monday this week, you met with the Centre Manager, Linda, who gave you a good overview of the company's history, services and their needs to increase profit. You took lots of notes, especially when Linda spoke about the small coffee shop leased to a private operator which will be closing next month. The coffee shop has been in the building for ages and is very small and a little tired. Not an image that the Centre wishes to portray. Linda is worried that some of her clients will go to the Hyde Park gym which is 5 minutes away when the lease leaves next month. They have a nice modern light kitchen where their clients can sit after their sessions.

When you were leaving Linda asked if you could come up with some solution about sitting out a coffees shop.

Your next meeting will be in a week so you can come up with some ideas for business improvement and possibly confirm her needs.

Your notes:

"Bounce Fitness is made up of four fitness centres. Head office is currently established in Cairns, Queensland. The other centres are in Brisbane, (Queensland), Sydney, (New South Wales) and Melbourne, (Victoria).

It was established in 2001 by Margaret House as a single aerobic studio. After two years' membership increases demanded the small leased centre be expanded and a new facility was built on land purchased by the organisation. In 2004 a second centre was established in leased premises in Brisbane and then Sydney and Melbourne in the subsequent two years.

The Head Office remains in Cairns and a Board of Directors has been established to oversee the function of the business in all of the centres. Each centre has a General Manager (Centre Manager) who reports to the CEO in Cairns, and a team of permanently employed fitness instructors and other casual instructors, all of whom report to the Centre Manager.

The business is operated on best business practice and complies with all legislative requirements, local by-laws and is registered with the national body.

Bounce Fitness intends to market its brand through excellence in service and expertise to establish itself as a premier provider of fitness and wellness in Australia.

All centres are carpeted in areas used for stationary activities, spacious, well-ventilated and air-conditioned to make the environment as safe and comfortable as possible. They are light and feature wrap-around mirrored walls.

Each centre features a retail section selling fitness shoes, clothes and other related fitness items. There is a small cafeteria which was in the building before the gym has opened and it is leased to a provider who supplies healthy, low calorie drinks.

Each Centre has scheduled various fitness classes ranging from high intensity to low intensity. The scheduling is left to each Centre but must sustain a minimum average of twelve in each class for them to continue to be held. The style of classes changes as new methods are developed to sustain interest and provide variety.

Funding is primarily from memberships. Memberships are sold on one, three, six- and twelve-monthly bases on a decreasing fee scale. Casual members are welcome, but the daily rate is a premium one.

Each Centre sells memberships to 120%. This means that at peak times it could be quite crowded, but experience demonstrates that there is a maximum of 80% usage.

The retail arm of the business accounts for about 30% of the takings from each centre. The strategic plan for retail is set to increase investment in sales this year to 35%. Each Centre will be given a budget to develop and implement a sales and marketing plan to trial. The most successful may be implemented nationally and will attract an incentive for the most successful Centre. When discussing this, Linda mentioned that the current cafeteria rent the gym receives from the lease is included in the retail business income. The cafeteria lease, is reconsidered during each annual planning session by the Board, which produces 5% of the income, less than the rent off-set

You have reviewed your notes the aim to identify business needs or issues prior to having a meeting with Linda and her team.

question :

This section of the business case template lists the preliminary constraints for the proposed project. As the project is selected and moves into detailed project planning, the list of constraints will most likely grow as the project plan is developed. However, for the business case there should be at least a preliminary list from which to build.