A Leading Fitness Tech Firm's Strategy Revamp with Quantive StrategyAI

Running a business can feel like aiming at a moving target, with market shifts often causing chaos and forcing ineffective, knee-jerk reactions. The key to ongoing success lies in adaptability, which helps you create, retain, and sustain a competitive edge. 

But how do you keep your strategic plan "Always-On," continuously adapting to internal and external changes? 

Facing this exact challenge, PedalTone, a fitness technology company, struggled to adapt to post-pandemic market shifts. Their solution? Quantive StrategyAI. 

With its AI-powered insights, extensive integrations to their data systems, and data-driven decision-making features, PedalTone relied on Quantive StrategyAI to refresh their strategy and deploy it in record time. Quantive StrategyAI provided PedalTone with dynamic strategy suggestions tailored to their specific business data, context, and working methods, helping them overcome the hurdles of market disruption. 

This article illustrates the power of Quantive StrategyAI by exploring PedalTone’s journey and how it used Quantive StrategyAI to overcome its post-pandemic challenges. 

Before diving in, let’s take a quick look at PedalTone’s evolution before, during, and after the pandemic.  

PedalTone is a fitness technology company known for its interactive exercise equipment. They offer bikes, rows, and treadmills, and subscription-based streaming services for live and on-demand fitness classes. 

PedalTone before the pandemic 

Before the pandemic, the connected fitness market was steadily growing, and PedalTone was a favorite among enthusiasts seeking premium, at-home workouts. The company built its reputation on high-quality hardware, engaging digital content, live sessions, and a vibrant fitness community. 

During this time, PedalTone focused on building brand awareness, attracting customers, growing its subscriber base, and developing new fitness programs. This strategy led to steady, though modest, growth in sales and revenue year over year.  

In 2019, PedalTone went public with an IPO priced at $25.76 per share, signaling the company’s potential to disrupt the fitness industry. 

PedalTone’s COVID boom

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a dramatic shift in customer workout preferences, skyrocketing PedalTone to new heights. With lockdown measures in place and people confined to their homes, traditional gyms struggled, while digital, at-home fitness solutions thrived.  

As a result, PedalTone quickly became a top leader in this new landscape, experiencing unprecedented user and revenue growth. This caused their stock price to skyrocket, peaking at $167.42 in January 2021. 

In response to the demand spike, PedalTone focused on scaling its operations while maintaining customer satisfaction. It invested heavily in its supply chain and customer experience, expanding its digital content library and introducing new workout programs. 

Despite these efforts, supply chain disruptions and maintaining product quality amid rapid growth became persistent challenges. 

PedalTone post-COVID  

As the pandemic eased and gyms reopened, PedalTone saw yet another shift in customer preferences. While many users continued to enjoy at-home workouts, many returned to their pre-pandemic gym habits.   

As a result, PedalTone’s sales growth slowed post-pandemic. The company reported a 22% decline in annual revenue year-over-year, and its stock price fell to $3.65 as of early June 2024, marking a significant drop from its peak. 

Since then, the fitness industry has continued to evolve. Competition intensified from companies offering similar at-home fitness solutions, and the rise of AI and wearable technology further impacted PedalTone’s performance. Yet, ongoing health concerns and gym capacity restrictions created a new demand for the hybrid fitness model — one combining at-home and in-gym workouts. 

In response, PedalTone has been trying to reposition itself as a broader health technology provider. They’ve been working on offering more holistic health programs, including mental wellness, personalized workouts, AI-powered strength training devices, and corporate wellness programs. Despite this, PedalTone hasn’t rebounded as expected. 

Ready for a breakthrough, PedalTone turned to Quantive StrategyAI for a refined strategic approach.  

Let’s explore how PedalTone’s chief strategy officer (CSO) used Quantive StrategyAI to get strategic recommendations and adapt their approach to meet changing customer demands. 

As a first step, they crafted a prompt to guide Quantive StrategyAI’s recommendations:  

"PedalTone needs strategic guidance on how to adapt to customer workout preferences and expand its market share to a wider audience outside of the home workout environment." 

They then uploaded the relevant PedalTone documents to Quantive StrategyAI’s secure servers. These included key strategic artifacts and market information (e.g., financial data, mission and vision statements, industry data) to ensure Quantive StrategyAI has a comprehensive understanding of PedalTone’s internal environment. 

Once uploaded, the CSO provided Quantive StrategyAI with additional context. 

“We've observed a slowdown in business growth and identified shifting trends in consumer and customer behavior. Notably, consumers are spending less time at home and more time at the gym. We aim to adapt our offerings to grow our share of wallet but are uncertain about the best approach.”   

Based on the prompt and context provided by the CSO, Quantive StrategyAI generated a decision map with various hypotheses to explore, including: 

• Market potential 
• Competition 
• Customer considerations 
• Go-to-market strategy 
• Financials & profitability 

For each hypothesis, Quantive StrategyAI recommended strategic frameworks and guided further analysis using AI's rapid data processing. 

Within minutes, rather than the standard days and weeks, the CSO had a SWOT analysis ready for stakeholder collaboration. 
 

PedalTone’s CSO presented this SWOT analysis to major stakeholders. Equipped with thorough, qualitative analysis of strategic decisions, they could quickly agree on three key strategic pivots: 

1. Establishing partnerships with mid-level gyms (to target consumers who prefer hybrid workouts) 
2. Doubling down on AI-driven personalization (to keep existing customers engaged) 
3. Diversifying their offerings to include low-impact workouts (and as such, expand their market) 

With consensus reached, PedalTone's CSO could then use Quantive StrategyAI to turn their decision into a clear action plan with one click. 

This seamless translation of strategic pivots into strategic goals significantly sped up the decision-making and planning process, allowing PedalTone to drive action quickly. 

Quantive StrategyAI generated three strategic goals, in the form of objective and key results (OKRs), to align with their agreed-upon strategic pivots. These were: 

Company goal #1: Mid-level gym partnerships 

• Objective: Establish strong partnerships with mid-level gyms 
• Key result 1: Secure collaboration agreements with 5 mid-level gym chains to integrate PedalTone's software solutions into their workout offerings 
• Key result 2: Develop and deploy software that seamlessly integrates with the existing workout products of 5 partnered gyms 
• Key result 3: Introduce a new feature that allows PedalTone subscribers to sync their in-gym workout data with the PedalTone app, ensuring a seamless experience across both environments 

Company goal #2: AI-driven customer retention 

• Objective: Leverage AI-driven personalization for superior customer retention 
• Key result 1: Implement AI algorithms to create tailored workout plans based on user preferences, goals, and performance data 
• Key result 2: Use AI to recommend personalized content such as classes, challenges, and community events, increasing user engagement by 20% 
• Key result 3: Integrate AI-driven feedback and adjustment mechanisms into workout routines to maintain a customer retention rate of 90% 

Company goal #3: Product line for low-impact workouts 

• Objective: Transform the product line to include comprehensive low-impact workouts 
• Key result 1: Introduce comprehensive yoga and Pilates digital workout classes 
• Key result 2: Develop and launch a multi-functional reformer tool that supports both Pilates and yoga exercises 
• Key result 3: Achieve a 27% increase in revenue from the new low-impact workout programs and reformer tool 

These were automatically displayed on Quantive StrategyAI’s collaborative whiteboard as: 

PedalTone’s CSO then picked three key performance indicators (KPIs) to match these goals, linking them together. To get the ball rolling, the CSO tapped into Quantive StrategyAI’s “Suggest OKRs” feature, which broke down the initial company goals into actionable, lower-level ones.  

For the company goal focused on establishing partnerships with mid-level gyms, three cascading goals were created:

The same lower-level goals were created for the other two company goals, resulting in a comprehensive view of cascading goals in Quantive StrategyAI. 

Next, PedalTone’s CSO ensured accountability by assigning each objective and key result to designated owners and contributors. They specified the units of measurement, targets, and deadlines for each key result while adding any additional resources or tags as needed.  

Quantive StrategyAI then notified the various teams, owners, and contributors of their newly assigned OKRs. This feature ensures teams are looped into the new strategic pivots right away and can start planning their initiatives around them. 

Using Quantive StrategyAI’s features, PedalTone’s CSO could further streamline time-to-action, ensuring teams are aligned on their goals and making steady strides to achieve them. 

PedalTone’s executives did this by relying on StrategyAI’s: 

• Alignment View: Provides a comprehensive overview of strategic objectives and their alignment across teams and departments, ensuring everyone is on the same page to reduce misalignment and improve collaboration 
• Integrations: Connects Quantive StrategyAI with tools and systems already in use, ensuring seamless data flow, reduced manual entry, real-time updates, and enhanced decision-making as well as operational efficiency 
• Check-ins: Helps maintain a pulse on the progress of initiatives, allowing teams to report on status, discuss challenges, and make necessary adjustments to keep projects on track and aligned with strategic objectives 
• Reporting: Offers detailed insights and analytics on strategy execution, helping executives understand performance metrics, track KPIs, and make informed decisions based on customizable reports that focus on and measure critical aspects of strategy 

To stay on top of goal and KPI progress, PedalTone’s teams meet biweekly to discuss progress, feedback, and any roadblocks they’ve encountered. During these meetings, they also discuss whether changes to goals, tasks, or initiatives are needed. 

In the meantime, if anything needs attention between meetings, teams can rely on StrategyAI features like comments, reactions, confidence levels, and progress reports for real-time insights and cooperation. 

As a result, PedalTone's approach to managing strategic change was transformed. They no longer rely on a slow, top-down approach that results in outdated initiatives. With Quantive StrategyAI's AI-powered suggestions, OKR and KPI linking, and prompt analysis, they can quickly analyze, implement, and evaluate strategic pivots. If, at any time, a strategy proves effective, they can reassess it promptly, avoiding wasted resources.  

By using Quantive StrategyAI to monitor goals and make timely adjustments, PedalTone's leaders ensure everyone is aligned and making meaningful progress, focusing on tasks that move the needle on the right strategic goals.  

Quantive StrategyAI isn't just limited to fitness tech — its capabilities extend across business sectors. Whether you’re planning, executing, or reviewing your strategy, Quantive StrategyAI serves as an end-to-end strategy management solution. Its real-time data analytics, advanced AI-powered insights, and seamless integration with your preferred tools ensure your business remains agile, aligned, and responsive, keeping internal dynamics in lockstep with external changes. 

Want to see what Quantive StrategyAI can do for your business? Check out the quick tour here. 

Quantive empowers modern organizations to turn their ambitions into reality through strategic agility. It's where strategy, teams, and data come together to drive effective decision-making, streamline execution, and maximize performance.     

As your company navigates today’s competitive landscape, you need an Always-On Strategy to continuously bridge the gap between current and desired business outcomes. Quantive brings together the technology, expertise, and passion to transform your strategy and playbooks from a static formulation to a feedback-driven engine for growth.    

Whether you’re a fast-growing scale-up, a mid-market business looking to conquer, or a large enterprise looking for innovation, Quantive keeps you ahead – every step of the way. For more information, visit www.quantive.com.