Data reliability: Restored user trust in data, fostering new applications
Performance gains: Enabling more reactive business management
Continuously actionable data: More numerous and better-targeted campaigns, executed without delay
Reduced operating costs: Optimized data foundation for the implementation of innovative AI-powered services
With BigQuery and serverless services, the solution built by Fitness Park has improved data reliability, reduced operational costs, optimized business management, and paved the way for innovative AI-powered services.
With BigQuery and serverless services, the solution built by Fitness Park has improved data reliability, reduced operational costs, optimized business management, and paved the way for innovative AI-powered services.
Smallwood: Building the foundation for the new data era
Founded in 2009, Fitness Park quickly established itself as a key player in the fitness industry in France and internationally. With over 350 clubs across France, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, the company continues its rapid expansion. This success is based on a unique positioning: making a high-end sports experience accessible at a competitive price.
"Within our clubs, our members discover immersive and motivating concepts such as Burning Park, Cycle Park, and Fight Park. Our facilities offer unique spaces, some integrating digital solutions for an enhanced experience, particularly in our cardio-training areas and virtual coached class studios. We provide various options to support everyone in achieving their goals: connected Technogym machines, connected scales for precise body composition analysis, Hydromassage for optimal post-workout recovery, and tools to measure and track performance," explains Eddy Cozzi, Head of Data at Fitness Park.
As the fitness sector undergoes rapid transformation, the brand is betting on data to consolidate its competitive advantage. It has embarked on a vast digital transformation project called Smallwood, which includes the redesign of its data architecture to better manage its activities and lay the foundations for personalized AI-powered services.
Our primary objective was to generate trust in the data among our users, without which they would have continued to ignore our solutions. Thanks to the traceability and centralization achieved in BigQuery, we now have reliable data that they can rely on to make informed decisions and foster new data-driven practices.
Eddy Cozzi
Head of Data at Fitness Park
"Our legacy ERP system offers limited flexibility for data analysis. It doesn't meet our growing needs for agility and performance, and more importantly, it makes information traceability difficult, which undermines the teams' trust in the produced figures," explains Eddy Cozzi. "For a rapidly growing company, this existing system was becoming a bottleneck. We needed a more robust, more flexible data infrastructure, and above all, one capable of growing with us."
Supported by Pyl.Tech, a Google Cloud partner, Fitness Park realized its vision by building its data architecture on Google Cloud. This overhaul resulted in the implementation of a data lake in BigQuery, designed to accommodate raw data from the ERP without prior transformation. It forms the first building block of a system designed to evolve into a data warehouse, capable of cross-referencing data from the ERP with other internal or external sources, and in turn, feeding dashboards, marketing campaigns, and CRM tools.
Cloud-native with distinct development, testing, and production environments, the automation of processing and flows relies on the serverless services Cloud Functions and Cloud Run. These enable on-demand process triggering without dedicated infrastructure. This consumption-based approach ensures maximum flexibility while promoting control over operating costs.
Finally, as an essential prerequisite for establishing rigorous governance and laying the foundation for reliable analyses, Fitness Park implemented an ingestion mechanism based on Change Data Capture (CDC) to ensure data traceability.
Solid foundations to manage, automate, and all with confidence
"The primary objective was to generate trust in the data among our users, without which they would have continued to ignore our solutions. Thanks to the traceability and centralization achieved in BigQuery, we now have reliable data that they can rely on to make informed decisions and foster new data-driven practices," says Eddy Cozzi.
BigQuery provides us with new computing power that is a game-changer: it not only allows us to consider new uses for the data but also to demonstrate to users the value of relying on our infrastructure. Queries that used to take several hours now run in seconds. This performance gain strengthens their confidence and encourages them to adopt our solutions.
Eddy Cozzi
Head of Data at Fitness Park
While the choice of Google Cloud was driven by consistency with the existing Google Workspace environment, it was primarily motivated by solid technical and economic reasons. The benefits already observed confirm the relevance of this choice, as Eddy Cozzi points out: "The serverless approach allows us to adjust resources on demand, ensuring optimal performance, high operational agility, and rigorous cost control. At the same time, BigQuery provides us with new computing power that is a game-changer: it not only allows us to consider new uses for the data but also to demonstrate to users the value of relying on our infrastructure. Queries that used to take several hours now run in seconds. This performance gain strengthens their confidence and encourages them to adopt our solutions."
Thanks to the performance gains achieved with BigQuery, Fitness Park can also automate a set of processes that were previously too complex or too time-consuming to execute. The speed of query execution, for example, makes it possible to trigger targeted marketing campaigns several times a day, to feed business dashboards in real-time, and to synchronize CRM flows continuously. These are all projects that were previously blocked by the limitations of the previous infrastructure but are now made possible by this agile and resilient architecture.
A fitness experience augmented by artificial intelligence
While the data foundation deployed by Fitness Park is already delivering on its promises in terms of analysis and management, its architecture was designed with a broader ambition, as Eddy Cozzi emphasizes: "Our vision is not only to better manage our business but also to prepare for the arrival of innovative services based on artificial intelligence. We want to go further in personalizing the customer experience with recommendations for exercises, nutrition, and intelligent training programs."
This vision initially relies on enriching the data lake with new information sources from the use of equipment in the clubs (Technogym machines, connected scales, and so on) and member behavior. With this enriched database, Fitness Park intends to leverage Google Cloud's AI solutions, including Vertex AI and Gemini, to transform its raw data into value-added services. "Much more than just a data infrastructure, Smallwood will then become the engine of a reinvented fitness experience, capable of supporting each member with personalized recommendations," emphasizes Eddy Cozzi.
The mobile application, already central to the Fitness Park experience, will become the preferred point of contact for these enriched services, offering members a virtual coach in their pocket. The first building blocks are in place: a modern, secure, open data infrastructure ready to interact with Google Cloud's AI tools.
In a rapidly expanding market where innovation is key to differentiation, Fitness Park intends to establish itself not only as a leading player on the ground but also as a pioneer in the use of data in the sports world. A bold bet, driven by a committed team and close collaboration with Google Cloud. "The sector is evolving rapidly, and we want to stay ahead of the curve. Being a leader in data, and tomorrow in AI, also means guaranteeing a constantly enriched and intelligently managed customer experience," concludes Eddy.
The sector is evolving rapidly, and we want to stay ahead of the curve. Being a leader in data, and tomorrow in AI, also means guaranteeing a constantly enriched and intelligently managed customer experience.
Eddy Cozzi
Head of Data at Fitness Park
Founded in 2009 in Puteaux, Fitness Park is a French chain of fitness clubs with over 350 clubs worldwide and more than one million members. Its model is based on affordable memberships, an experience enhanced by technology, and franchise development. The company employs 1,500 people and generated €300 million in revenue in 2023.
Industry: Leisure / Sports
Location: Paris, France
Products: Google Cloud, BigQuery, Cloud Run functions, Google Workspace
About Google Cloud partner — Pyl.Tech
Pyl.Tech is a certified Google Cloud and Google Workspace partner, specializing in supporting companies to transform their information systems and modernize their application portfolios.
