Topnotch Health Clubs

Client Profile:

Topnotch have ten health clubs across the Midlands and South East of England. As well as state of the art facilities, personal trainers are on hand at all the sites to provide expert advice and bespoke training programmes for all their members.

Case Study:

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Left to right: Steve Bradley, Topnotch Operations Director and Nigel Collins, Auditel Consultant.

Auditel consultant Nigel Collins first met Steve Bradley, Operations Director at the Brentford Head Office in 2005. While Topnotch provides world class fitness facilities, they needed advice to help them understand and manage their overhead costs. The training needed and the time it would take to educate staff in-house in this area was not nearly as cost effective as employing the services of an outsourced specialist. Furthermore with the growth of the leisure industry, fitness clubs are feeling the pressure to stay ahead of the game, not just in their core areas but in all aspects of their business. Steve comments “the leisure industry has become very competitive over the last few years and it is essential for any successful business to constantly review its practices”.

Nigel began with a review of the clubs’ fixed line telecommunications. As a result of the clubs’ opening hours the first stage involved finding a suitable tariff that would not only offer competitive rates during the week, but also cover weekends, evenings and early mornings, to both local and mobile phones. Because the phone line rental was split between two different providers Nigel migrated the calls which were with multiple suppliers across the sites to one of the line rental providers and negotiated a substantial reduction in the clubs’ current line rental prices. Nigel revealed a further opportunity for savings on fixed lines that Topnotch had unknowingly been paying for but were not using. Having successfully audited Topnotch’s telephone expenditure, Nigel moved his attention to their water costs. An audit revealed a rebate due against the increased surface water charge at one of the clubs as well as a 5% annual saving on the water usage at two of the sites.

Investigations of the clubs’ electricity usage showed an annual saving of 5% on the incumbent supplier and observations of their gas showed that Topnotch’s usage was significantly lower than the Nominated Annual Consumption set by TRANSCO, possibly as a result of mild weather. To ensure that his client wasn’t going to be penalised for their low usage, Nigel checked that the alternative suppliers he approached didn’t have ‘take or pay’ clauses in their agreements. This may have meant charges for usage if they were below 80% of the TRANSCO Annual Quantity.

When moving the gas to an alternative supplier there was an issue at two of the Topnotch sites. The incumbent provider stated that there had been a change of ownership so applied 12 months of default rates to the final accounts. After lengthy negotiations and the backing of Energywatch the correct rates were applied.

Nigel’s reviews with Topnotch are ongoing, specifically in complex areas such as the sites’ power consumption levels and availability charges. The managers at the sites are provided with Call Exception Reports on a periodic basis, so that they can monitor any unauthorised phone calls. Staff at the sites are advised on the most cost effective directory enquiries service to use and if any of the Topnotch chain need to remove or add a new telephone line, Nigel is on hand to assist and ensure their needs are met as quickly and as inexpensively as possible.

Download a PDF copy of the case study.