Believing that changing things up can bring richness to life, Total Fitness’ large health clubs offer many ways to workout; extensive gym floors, over 70 classes a week, impressive swimming pools, expert personal trainers, and digital content - allowing members to take the brand home. This variety provides its members with more opportunities, encouraging a lifelong love of fitness as they move through life. To encourage everyone to start or continue their fitness journey, the company also offers newcomers the opportunity to experience the club’s facilities and amenities via a free day pass.
Business case
As the company grew, Total Fitness needed an alternative to its on-premises, customized IT system that wasn’t able to support them or their plans for future growth.
It’s at this time, that Total Fitness began its search for a new business management system, that would support them both now, and in the future.
Already familiar with Microsoft's technology stack, Total Fitness went in search of a system that would seamlessly integrate to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP and back office. “We were using Microsoft Dynamics NAV as our ERP software, so the obvious evolution was Business Central,” says Karl Ellis, Head of IT at Total Fitness.
Solution
After local LS Retail partner iDyam Solutions demoed LS Central, LS Retail’s centralized POS, and retail management software, that extends Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Total Fitness selected the software solution as it met all their criteria. LS Central enables businesses to manage finances, sales, bookings, loyalty, inventory, and analytics, all within the same platform. “The decision to partner with LS Central was closely connected to the move to Business Central since the two systems have integrated well together,” says Ellis.
iDyam Solutions and Total Fitness worked closely together during the implementation of the software so that the system would be effectively integrated into their current structure, and meet all the company’s requirements. “We’re not a standard business, we run quite a diverse inventory list with quite a lot of different VAT rules and rates,” says Ellis. “Having an IT partner such as iDyam Solutions, with extensive experience in similar industries and knowledgeable of the VAT regulations applicable to these transactions, was key to the success of the implementation.”
Benefits
Today all 15 Total Fitness locations run on LS Central. It covers the whole retail functionality which can include a range of items from food and drink, clothing, swimming equipment, and more. The system also allows the company to track item sales accurately, identify growth opportunities, and make informed business decisions.
Other benefits that Total Fitness has experienced include:
- Getting real-time analytics and reports – With LS Central, the company can capture a wealth of data about club operations and sales which can be used to drive decision-making. “We hold monthly meetings with front-of-house managers and general managers when we feedback on what bestsellers they've got, how stocks should be adjusted,” says Jonathan Gatehouse, Food, Beverage, and Retail Support Manager. “I think the best part about LS Central for us is the reporting we can do at the back of it and how we can track all different elements.”
- Reducing training time – Gatehouse says that compared to other POS systems that he has seen in the past, LS Central is a very user-friendly platform, accessible to every team member. “We have a wide range of employees and some of them have never worked in retail or hospitality,” says Gatehouse. “Even those that are not comfortable using back-of-house systems find it easy to serve customers using the LS Central POS.”
- Providing better member experience and reducing queues – The new solution has improved the way the team can serve their customers. “LS Central helps in creating a smoother customer journey,” says Gatehouse.
To reduce the costs associated with its IT infrastructure and increase agility, Total Fitness recently migrated from an on-premises to a SaaS deployment. “We don't want to run legacy systems, it’s our strategy to be focused on SaaS-based platforms,” says Ellis. “Before moving to SaaS, we were using local tills reporting back to a centralized staging area till which used Data Director which then talked to the ERP,” says Ellis. “It was quite a complicated chain.”
To make the process as smooth as possible, iDyam Solutions and Total Fitness ran data snapshots and testing, paying attention to the extensions that were needed to work with LS Central. “I believe the implementation went well because we practiced it with a couple of dry runs and we had comprehensive testing at the point we cut over,” says Ellis. “It was a well-trodden path, both from a Microsoft and an LS Retail point of view. We only had to provision a new reseller part within our Microsoft 365 environment.”
“Then we did a little bit of work to convert the tills from working locally to working in the cloud, again without real issues,” says Ellis. “The only noise that we got was variations in the local pricing file that were on the legacy tills that were not replicated in the live environment, but we were quickly able to rectify that.”
Overall, as a company, we’re very satisfied with the project and ongoing support services provided by iDyam Solutions. says Ellis. “It was pretty seamless.”
Following the successful implementation of LS Central SaaS, Total Fitness continues to monitor its success metrics and reports positive results. It is also looking into using the software for inventory management to get a precise picture of what is in stock and where, so they can quickly replenish stock when needed.
