If we are to realise our ambition of becoming a 100-year-old brand, it’s essential that we have an ongoing, deep understanding of our community.
Carly Natalizia, Chief Digital Officer, Gymshark
Gymshark, a true disruptor in the gymwear industry, has carved a remarkable success story from its humble beginnings in 2012. Its growth had been powered by an exceptional ability to activate the gym community. Yet, as the company matured, they understood that continued expansion required more than just mass community engagement.
To realise the vision of becoming a 100-year-old company, it recognised the need for a deeper, data-driven understanding of its customers to fuel the next phase of growth. The challenge was clear: how could Gymshark make more informed decisions across its entire organisation by understanding customer data?
While it possessed a wealth of information, Gymshark needed a data-led approach that would inform product development, marketing campaigns, digital experiences, and retail strategies. This required not just technology, but a fundamental shift in how it understood and interacted with its customer base. Gymshark looked to Deloitte to help transform its fragmented customer data into a powerful engine for informed decision-making and personalised engagement across both online and expanding retail channels.
"Deloitte was instrumental in transforming our previously fragmented customer data into a powerful, unified engine. This has not only enabled us to make far more informed decisions across our entire organisation but has also allowed us to deliver genuinely personalised engagement, whether our customers are interacting with us online or in our growing retail spaces in real life."
Carly Natalizia, Chief Digital Officer, Gymshark
Strengthening customer insights
Technical expertise and strategic foresight, combined with the power of Google Cloud, enabled us to build and implement a robust data ecosystem tailored to Gymshark’s unique needs. We quickly built out the use cases for customer data, from cross-selling and upselling to dynamic personalisation. This provided a clear roadmap for value generation. Contracted on a value basis, this innovative commercial model aligned our success directly with Gymshark's, incentivising all parties to drive maximum value.
Drawing on the full strength of our experts, we brought together data engineers, data scientists, customer analytics modellers, and digital marketing experts, with additional input from technical specialists as needed - all working together to deliver an end-to-end solution for Gymshark. Delivery of our insight powered Google Cloud platform involved:
- Data engineering: Building on Gymshark's existing data we developed sophisticated data pipelines to integrate information from diverse sources. By identifying downstream data quality issues, we were able to address inconsistencies and improve overall data governance.
- Real-time analytics: Intuitive reports established a single source of truth for customer insight, allowing Gymshark to retire legacy systems. Delivering live sales and regional data have become crucial for immediate decision-making during peak trading periods such as Black Friday.
- Advanced modelling: Building intelligent models atop the platform has transformed raw data into actionable insights, enabling predictive analytics and targeted strategies. This has enabled hyper-personalisation across all customer touchpoints, from website recommendations and email communications to in-app experiences.
By orchestrating efforts across product teams, and developing an overarching digital strategy, we were able to guarantee seamless integration and maximum impact. We ran the platform until Gymshark's teams were fully capable, building their internal service function and ensuring they were set up to own and run the platform, models, and dashboards, embedding data-driven decision-making into their business-as-usual operations.
Our full-stack capability and integrated approach set the project apart. We didn't just build the technology, we embedded a team of marketing activation experts within Gymshark's marketing function. Taking the insights generated by the platform and bringing them to life through customer-facing campaigns across email, web, and app. Our rigorous approach to testing helped drive revenue growth – ultimately unlocking value for Gymshark.
Gillian Simpson, Value Realisation Partner, Deloitte
Raising the bar
By bringing this bold vision to life, Gymshark has unlocked significant commercial value. Placing customer data at the heart of its strategy has not only achieved substantial revenue growth but also refined customer acquisition and retention strategies – helping it focus on long-term value over short-term volume.
The project generated an impressive £20 million in revenue within a single year, while at the same time improving the quality of Gymshark's customer base. By leveraging data, the brand has been able to move beyond its core customer base through personalised product recommendations and targeting high net worth customers. This has led to a significant enhancement in overall customer value and quality, and Gymshark now cultivates a healthier, more profitable customer portfolio. Teams are now self-sufficient, with data insights seamlessly integrated into their daily operations, fostering a culture of continuous, data-led improvement.
“Providing real-time data is always important, but it’s critical during high-volume events such as Black Friday. We built everything to withstand peak demand so that Gymshark can always respond to trends in prime time.”
Jon O’Mahony, Technical Delivery Partner, Deloitte
Gymshark is now better equipped to pursue its ambition of becoming a 100-year-old brand, with a robust, data-driven foundation that empowers informed decision-making, fosters deeper customer relationships, and continues to drive sustainable growth in an ever-evolving market. By focusing on its core ambition, building a cutting-edge data platform on Google Cloud, and empowering its teams with actionable insights, together we’ve fostered a culture of data-driven decision-making.
