The integration of fitness data for health purposes is at the forefront. Since 20 years, Cardioscan is finding solutions to turn the mass of data into personalized fitness advises for the users. At the FitTech Deep Dive "Health Rules!" Nico Wege, Chief Digital Officer (CDO) of Cardioscan will tell us, what is actually behind turning data into customer-experiences.
What exactly it is that Cardioscan does?
At Cardioscan, we developed smart health screening solutions, so hardware and software to make your health and body data visible. And we use this data to create individual recommendations for training, nutrition and regeneration. We help people to achieve their fitness goals by giving them the right plan with the help of their own body and health data.
There seems to be a strong desire from consumers for personalization through data. What is the data that you guys are acquiring and how are you getting it through your hardware?
Our data sets are pretty unique because we get a 360 degree view of your body and mind. We can do this with our own screening devices, checking the stress level, body composition, metabolism, oxygen situation, body fat, and muscle mass. In addition, with our app, we can also check your daily habits. We can help users to get rid of the wrong habits and start with better ones. Regarding fitness, nutrition and regeneration, we always want to have this 360 degree view.
As far as the fitness industry, who is adopting your hardware and technologies right now?
I’ll take a step back because you mentioned that it’s a really data set that we are using, and we can pull from our own 20 years experience. Cardioscan has been in the market for the last 20 years. We’ve been able to develop intelligence to handle this mass amount of data. We can find correlations in the data that help create the right advice for each individual and their current condition. Right now, we are the phase where we want to use the intelligence to empower even more of the fitness industry. When our founder Marc started Cardioscan, he did not target the fitness market at first place. He saw it as a solution for the medical market. But he came across some gym operators that saw the potential of using body data to create better workout plans and nutrition advice for their members. So Cardioscan suddenly saw the potential in the fitness market without targeting it specifically. Now, the fitness market is our biggest focus moving forward with new, innovation solutions coming soon.
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What is it about the fitness market that you guys find so attractive and what are the opportunities there for Cardioscan?
I’ve been in the fitness market for the last 13 years and have always been into data. I acquired data from more than 2 million members. I was number one and number two in the online fitness market because I investigated my customers’ needs and why they came to the gym. I can say that more than two thirds of those members were there for health reasons. They wanted to lose weight. They wanted to lead a more active life. Only a third wanted to build up big muscles and reasons like that. If you take a look at the market over the past few years and ask how we addressed those needs, there's a big gap. Now we have the chance to get it right focus more on the health aspects because they have always been there. We don't have to look like at the last two years and the effects that COVID had in increasing the focus on health. That focus has always been there in the fitness market, but the right products and the right services were missing.
What does that look like in your mind in the next five years for health club operators specifically? How does it change with how I interact with my clients?
So I think first of all, the support, training, nutrition, regeneration has to become much more individual. It’s not about trying random diets and nutrition plans. It has to be tailored to the customer's needs and the journey in the future should always start with screening and analyzing your members. If we take a look at those topic - training, regeneration, nutrition - it doesn't only take place in the gym. You have a member in your gym for one hour, or maybe two hours a day. There are a lot more hours left in a day where this person still has to deal with these health factors. As an industry, we have to develop products and services to bring those worlds together and enable the gym operators to see the other 22 hours of the day. We need to help integrate better habits and help the members achieve their goals.
We can get people in as fitness professionals, we can give them a good workout, but then they go off and they may just completely ruin everything they did within the first two hours of leaving the gym. That's a huge opportunity that we have now that we didn't have 10 years ago and thanks to technologies like Cardioscan.
Yes, I mean, we have the chance right now. If we take a look at connected fitness equipment, this is something that Cardioscan will focus on in the next few months. We want to use our intelligence, or an analysis of the data to empower the fitness machines to provide a really individualized training program for every member. This might be different for every member and it might be different from day to day. So you can do the same workout today or tomorrow and have totally different effects. Because you have a complete different stress level or you're just not fit enough. Or maybe you should just relax more.
Nico, we're super excited to have you for the panel. I can't wait to hear all these these bright minds and great technologies coming together and really make this future vision happen.