Sky Ting is a New York-based health, wellness and fitness company with three in-person yoga studios and an online yoga digital platform. This hybrid format not only allowed them to pursue their (online) activities during the pandemic but also to improve customer experience and meet a growing demand.
The enabling role of digital tools during the pandemic: the case of a US wellness SME
Abstract
Founded in 2015 by Chloe Kernaghan and Krissy Jones, Sky Ting is a New York-based company operating in the wellness and fitness services sector. Sky Ting offers predominately yoga classes and trainings (covering a range of asana, pranayama and meditation techniques). However, Sky Ting continues to expand its retail offering, from cooking to writing, to travel and activism with the goal of cultivating practices improving people’s well-being.
Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sky Ting created a platform to upload online classes as a side project: “Sky Ting TV”. Therefore, and throughout 2020, it was easier for Sky Ting to adapt and shift from an in-person to a fully digitalised business model. With the outbreak of the pandemic and as governments started closing non-essential businesses to limit the spread of the virus, a significant part of the population across OECD countries was not able to work for the regular amount of time. This was particularly the case in the accommodation and food services; arts, entertainment and recreation; and retail services sectors, leading to declines in compensation of employees. In the United States the compensation of employees declined by more than 6% between the first and second quarter of 2020 (OECD, 2020[1]).
Nevertheless, Sky Ting still met two main barriers in the digitalisation of their activities: it struggled to keep the online community close to their staff during the digital yoga courses and it had problems in operating on the platform due to occasional slow connection.
Sky Ting is an example of how the COVID-19 crisis changed business practices and models: originally located in Chinatown (NYC), Sky Ting owned three in-person yoga studios, but after the pandemic outbreak in 2020, they shifted to a fully online business model, offering live classes run on their platform “Sky Ting TV”.
“Sky Ting TV” classes are pre-recorded and produced with a professional crew in their studios in New York, to then be uploaded to the “Sky Ting TV” platform. The main objective of this digital tool was to respond to the demand of an online yoga community that grew throughout the pandemic. This platform has in fact become Sky Ting’s main source of revenue along with a new offering in which the firm streams classes via Instagram for a donation using a digital payment platform (OECD, 2021[2]).
Sky Ting has not participated in any government (national or local) programmes and is unaware if there are initiatives that could be relevant to them.
OECD (2021), The Digital Transformation of SMEs, OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/bdb9256a-en.
OECD (2021), SME Digitalisation to Build Back Better, https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/50193089-en.pdf?expires=1650895216&id=id&accname=ocid84004878&checksum=53749B8E6D032F7C164B559578354381
References
[2] OECD (2021), The Digital Transformation of SMEs, OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/bdb9256a-en.
[1] OECD (2020), “Statistical Insights: How did the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic affect the household sector and public finances?”, https://www.oecd.org/fr/sdd/cn/statistical-insights-how-did-the-first-wave-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-affect-the-household-sector-and-public-finances.htm (accessed on 17 November 2022).
