Component 3: Case study report

 Case Study

Yogitva app

Ms. Aisha has been a yoga teacher for the past 7 years. She started her career by taking yoga classes in her neighborhood gym, but now she has her own yoga show airing on Star  Fitness where she teaches yoga to celebrities. Ms. Aisha has become a household name in fitness and mindfulness. At the peak of her career, a year ago Ms. Aisha launched her own app, Yogitva, for yoga. She wanted people to have access to learning yoga from her anytime, anywhere. She approached a team of computer software engineers who fulfilled her wish. Ms. Aisha had an offline yoga event (which was also aired live on TV) as an opening ceremony for the app. The event had various celebrities access the app on mobile phones and practice yoga together on a huge lawn in Mumbai. The event was met with great response and Yogitva became the talk of the town. 

The first month after launch Yogitva had over 1 million downloads. The second month after launch the downloads were reduced to half, and only fifty lakh downloads were made. The downloads kept declining in the third, fourth, and fifth months and by the sixth month almost no new downloads were seen and people started deleting the already downloaded ones. Ms. Aisha could not figure out why her app was failing. Her classes on Star Fitness were still receiving a good TRP rating, she was still in demand as a yoga teacher, and her app was constantly being promoted by the several celebrities who took her yoga classes. In order to figure out what was going wrong, people who had used the app, but then deleted it were asked about their experience with the app. Among them was a thirty-year-old female, who said that she had downloaded the app since she liked Ms. Aisha’s show on TV but then deleted it because the app did not work on her mobile’s operating system. This problem was reported by several other people who were accessing the app through iPhones, tablets, and laptops. Ms. Aisha had asked her team of computer software engineers to develop an app that would work on her own phone which has an android operating system. The engineers used user device data for android as the base for their app. A twenty-year-old male narrated his experience with the app. He said that he also loved Ms. Aisha’s classes on TV but could not pay the membership fee required to access the app as he was still a student. A twenty-four-year-old woman said that she had stopped using the app because she was a first-timer who wanted to learn from the basics of each yoga pose and this was not provided on the app. The app was made on the data provided by Ms. Aisha, who never thought the membership fee would be a problem since everyone who took her classes offline paid for them. It was found that a majority of users in need of the app were twenty-year-olds who did not have the time to go to classes regularly nor enough money to pay for them. 

Executive summary

Ms. Aisha has been a yoga teacher for the past 7 years. She wanted people to have access to learning yoga from her anytime, anywhere. Her app ‘Yogitva’, became the talk of the town after she had offline and mobile yoga sessions with celebrities. Ms. Aisha's yoga classes were still receiving a good TRP rating, and her app was still being promoted by several celebrities who took her yoga classes. People who had used the app but then deleted it were eventually asked about their experience with it.

Introduction

Ms. Aisha with the help of a few app developers created ‘Yogitva’ as she wanted people to have access to her classes anytime, anywhere. The app gained popularity through different celebrities and holding an offline event aired on TV. The app had over one million downloads in the first month since its launch. However, the app noticed a massive loss in new downloads over the next couple of months leading to almost no new downloads in the sixth month. Ms. Aisha’s classes on Star Fitness had the same number of viewers. She decided to ask the people for their reviews and experience with the app. This report will analyze the reasons for the poor performance of the app through the reviews of the app along with providing suggestions for the same.

Body

Target market identification

The audience targeted by Ms. Aisha for her app is the fitness and yoga enthusiasts who have been watching her classes on the Star Fitness channel and she took the help of a few celebrities to spread the word regarding ‘Yogitva’ so that people could access her classes that readily available anytime unlike on TV. 

The market needs

After a month of its launch, the app’s performance rapidly deteriorated although her classes on TV had a good TRP rating. People started deleting the app. After a number of reviews were collected from the people who had used the app, we come to understand the underlying problems that existed within the app and its development, which ultimately led to its downfall.

Analysis of the case

Among those reviews was three which helps us realize the major problems. The app was created only for android users which didn’t allow IOS and apple users to download the app on their devices. Ms. Aisha had introduced a mandatory membership fee that was necessary to access her classes on the app which most youngsters had a problem with. According to her, people had no difficulty paying for her offline classes and she just assumed that a similar tradition would be appropriate online. However, she was inconsiderate of the fact that people downloaded the app thinking they would have free access to her classes. Lastly, the app lacked basic courses in Yoga and solely offered advanced classes which was one of the reasons people deleted the app and made way for its poor performance. Aisha’s purpose was to make her yoga classes accessible to people anywhere and anytime but she kept these features hidden which is why people were surprised to find out that there is a compulsory membership fee, for android users only and it only provided advanced classes which makes up a poor strategy for the functioning of a product or an app. She had all the factors involved in making the app successful, the software app developers, and celebrities contact, she was popular, her TV show was popular, and she had impressive traction as she had initially gained one million downloads even with all the inappropriate implications of the app. 

Key issues or goals

The app didn’t satisfy the viewers or the users with what they were promised. They are evidently unhappy with the app and its peculiar features. Ms. Aisha’s decisions on the app development are questionable as her purpose was to make her classes more accessible to people, whereas the app’s implications directly contrast her motives. One could also question the authenticity or the reliability of the app’s advertisement as it might have not disclosed the fact that it was a paid app, costing several people their time and money. Ms. Aisha’s take on online fees being appropriate as people don’t find it difficult to pay offline fees is troubling as this indicates her ignorant attitude towards business and the digital market. She clearly didn’t know what she was signing up for as her app doesn’t reflect her ideals or what she wanted to convey.  

Recommendations

• She can remove the membership fee and as the app gains some downloads, she could include a premium user fee

• She can include the basic course and highlight the newly added features

• She can make her app accessible to all kinds of platforms without any bias

• She can advertise the changes made in her app and maybe conduct a survey or a feedback form after people use the app and ask for their suggestions. 

• Suggestions of the people are extremely helpful and I would recommend Ms. Aisha allow her users to feel like the app is somehow customized to their interests in order for it to be a great success. 

Decision criteria

Lack of expertise in certain areas when it comes to app development, advertising, business, and data analytics.

Assumptions

She might have not propagated the honest specifications of her app or she probably hadn’t disclosed the features which might have pushed lakhs of users to delete the app.  

Data analysis

According to the data, the first month after the launch Yogitva had over 1 million downloads. The second month after launch the downloads were reduced to half, and only fifty lakh downloads were made. The downloads kept declining in the third, fourth, and fifth months and by the sixth month almost no new downloads were seen and people started deleting the already downloaded ones

Preferred alternative with rationale and predicted outcome 

• I think Ms. Aisha should have hired a number of experts instead of handling it all by herself since she clearly lacks the knowledge to help her app survive. She could have hired a business analyst who could keep track of how the app is doing, along with an app architect who would have a professional understanding of user experience and user interface that could have solved the android problem and membership fee. 

• She could have had an advertising team instead of relying on celebrities alone. She could have thoroughly and plainly expressed what her app was really like before the launch and asked the people for their honest reviews and suggestions. 

• The online market is different from offline, instead of a membership fee, she could have invested in revenue from advertisements in the app.

This could have led to a really successful app as she really had all the necessities. 

Conclusion 

Ms. Aisha’s intent was clear from the beginning, she wanted to promote Yoga to a larger audience and she saw the online mediums as a means to help make this come true. However, her app suffered due to some rookie mistakes and decisions she made. I think she had a clear goal but she could have consulted the right people who could have aided in this process instead of doing it all on her own. 

Appendix