Paste your essay in here…1.0 INTRODUCTION
Picture 1: Gokul Yoga Suria Logo
(Source: Gokul Yoga Official Website)
Since the emergence of the term health and wellness, these practices have been adapted into the modern era of industrialization where most ideas can be turn into a profitable business. This is where occupational health and wellness come into place where people start to learn the profound knowledge about a specific activity before they practice it and hand down the apprehension that existed since long ago. Gokul Yoga in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah is chosen as the subject of the case study, it discusses in depth about the organization on its classification in the health and wellness spectrum, the type of organization it is, the investment requirement needed in order to establish these businesses, and how they operate on the daily.
1.1 COMPANY BACKGROUND
Gokul Yoga was founded by Jani Jaatinen, otherwise known as Gokulacandra from Finland, after moving to Kota Kinabalu in September 2012 (Jani Jaatinen 2018). He is known to be devoted onto sharing the knowledge of authentic styles of yoga classes, workshops, retreats and teacher trainings with every level of practitioners. The founder first dived into the world of yoga with Janne Kontala, a friend and lifelong teacher since the year 2000, and his passion and commitment to the spiritual practice has allowed him to train extensively with international teachers such as Cle Souren, B.N.S. Iyengar, Dwarka Das, Yogi Sachi, and Brahmacari Rudradev (Jani Jaatinen 2018). The studio he has founded with his wife, Jaci Ley, carries a philosophy in which their classes centre on providing high standard of teaching, guidance and support to their students in a tranquil and eco-friendly environment (Gokul Yogashala 2018).
After moving to Sabah where his wife was originated, the couple opened up Gokul Yogashala in Luyang, Kota Kinabalu, where they encouraged practitioners to strive for a higher internal department and achievement in a non-competitive attitude. The couple also has a studio called Gokul Yoga Surya, located at Suria Sabah, Kota Kinabalu. The schedules allocated for both studios are different from one another, as well as having different yoga trainers which allows interested practitioners the time and choice of instructors that would fit their interests.
Apart from that, the couple, who are both yoga instructors of the school, teaches four different types of yoga – Astanga, Vinyasa, Hatha, slow yoga and pre-natal yoga (Vivienne 2013). Pre-natal yoga is designed for pregnant women and covers postures, meditation and breathing techniques to merge the body and mind for calmness, flexibility, strength and balance that would help to prepare future moms for childbirth; whereas Jani Jaatinen has been practicing and teaching Hatha and Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga for thirteen years, and are able to integrate these spiritual practices into his daily life. In addition, Jani Jaatinen has taught workshops and retreats from various places such as Croatia, France, Estonia, India, Australia, Bali, Malaysia, Singapore, China and Indonesia (Vivienne 2013).
Gokul Yoga is open for all practitioners regardless of age, size, gender and fitness. Alongside the couple, a third instructor, Masley Yahya, are devoted into teaching the right technique and share their spiritual knowledge and practice with interested practitioners. All instructors are also fully qualified as stated by the Yoga Organization & Association.
1.2 ORGANIZATION OF BUSINESS GOKUL YOGA, KOTA KINABALU
Figure 1: Organization plan of Gokul Yoga
(Source: Interview)
A business organization is an entity aimed at carrying on commercial enterprise by providing goods or services, to meet needs of the customers. All business organizations: have the common features such as formal structure, aim to achieve objectives, use of resources, requirement of direction, and legal regulations controlling them (US Legal, Inc, n.d.). As for the business organization of Gokul Yoga, they implement a formal structure of business organization where each person have their designated task in managing the business in order for the business to run smoothly.
Jani Jaatinen who is better known as Mahayogi Gokulacandra das in the yoga world has been practising yoga since the year 2000, since then it has become an integral part of his spiritual journey in this world. He is a certified yoga practitioner with over 500 hours of teacher training, he often travel to attend yoga activities and be involved with the yoga movement throughout the world to share his knowledge and experiences. In September 2012 when he married Jaci Lay, he has moved to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah where he first started the business in the Borneo Island. Jani acting as the founder of this business is the person who will be liable to all the risk in the future time and is also responsible in recruiting the people in his business and work on the resources needed to build the organization.
The co-founder of Gokul Yoga, Kota Kinabalu, Jaci Lay is a person who is directly involved in the creation of the business as well. She is a certified yoga practitioner that is registered under Yoga Alliance for being an experienced registered yoga teacher that has completed a 200 hour teacher training, work alongside her husband Jani Jaatinen. She has been actively involved since youth and early adulthood in dance and fitness. She runs the daily operation of Gokul Yoga and sometimes assists to replace Jani’s classes while he is away. Other than that, she also teaches Prenatal Yoga for their customers in their main studio located in Taman Seri Gaya, Luyang.
When their business start growing, Masley Yahya come in the picture acting as a business partner to Gokul Yoga help manage the increasing number of people that come to practise yoga with them. Masley Yahya is also a an experienced registered yoga teacher certified by the Yoga Alliance for completing atleast 700 hours of teacher training. Not only that she also help manage the second branch of Gokul Yoga in Suria Sabah shopping mall.
In the case study, it is suggested that Gokul Yoga acting as an organization, should have a proper mission and vision placed in any of their online platform. This is important as the online platform is where their customer get extra information of the business. It is also suggested that Gokul Yoga, Kota Kinabalu get their main branch to update the information in their official website on the other branches and studio.
1.3 LOCATION
Picture 2: Suria Sabah Shopping mall on Google Map
(Source: Google Map)
Picture 3: Gokul Yoga inside Suria Sabah Shopping mall
(Source: Suria Sabah Official Website)
Suria Sabah is a modern one stop city center shopping mall that is located in the center of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Gokul Yoga is located at the second floor of this building with shop number 2-52/2-53.
1.4 CLASSIFICATION OF BUSINESS ON HEALTH & WELLNESS SPECTRUM
Figure 2: Spectrum of Health Tourism
(Source: Smith and Puczkó)
According to Smith & Puczko (2009), there are a spectrum of health tourism where it demonstrates the variety range of health and wellness products and facilities which have emerged in these recent years. Based on the health tourism spectrum, it is to be said that health tourism could be divided into two types which would be the wellness tourism and the medical tourism.
Wellness tourism would be defined as a special state of health which encompass an overall sense of well-being which view that human being consist of the body, spirit and also mind where as they are also dependable with their environment. Adams (2003) had listed out four main principles of wellness which is for the first one is that it is multidimensional, the next one would be that the research and practices done should be oriented towards identifying the causes of wellness rather than on the cause of the illnesses. There are six dimensional model which mainly focuses on physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, occupational and also social (The National Wellness Institute, 2007).
Whereas under wellness tourism there would be Holistic tourism, where it is actually where the tourism sector would provide the visitors with a range of activities and or also the treatment used to balance the body, mind and spirit. According the American Holistic Health Association (AHHA)(2007) holistic health as an approach to create wellness encourages you to, balance and integrate the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects, where they also establish respectful, cooperative relationships with others and the environment and also to make wellness-oriented lifestyle choices.
Spirituality is a holistic discipline which not limited to the explorations of the explicitly religious but considers all aspects of the spiritual experience, namely, the psychological, bodily, historical, political, aesthetic, intellectual and other dimensions of the human subject whereas the Yoga and meditation could be said to be from the sub-sectors of holistic tourism but also from the spiritual tourism since from the health tourism spectrum, yoga and meditation is under the spiritual and holistic part. According to Iyengar (1989) yoga is meant for the individual growth and also in the form of physically, emotionally intellectually and also for the spiritual balance of someone but yoga is not a religion. Actually the practices of yoga ideally to be integrated and incorporated into our everyday lifestyle but many people see of it as a holistic tourism.
There are a few different types of yoga where the most popular ones would be of the hatha yoga where they emphasizes more on the physical posture, breathing and meditation and also of the ashtanga yoga where the movement would be more dynamic and required physical strength where they would move from one posture to another. Sometimes it is hard for many people mainly for the westerners to grasp more on the concept and idea of wellness as it does not have a fixed fitness routines to be followed but at the same time, by doing and practices so, it is also to be considered as a form of meditation.
Based on the health and wellness spectrum, since the business related are of the yoga and meditation it is under the wellness tourism however, it is then linked in the holistic tourism though it is only a sub-sectors of it considering it to be also under the spiritual tourism.
2.0 PRODUCTS AND SERVICES OF GOKUL YOGA
A service is work done by another person for another individual. For instance, a person will visit a restaurant to have the desired services performed by other people while they relax on their tables. Legal advice is another good example of a service rendered to another person by professional lawyers. In most cases, people are usually attracted by the quality of service they get from a particular organization instead of the product itself. Quality service is satisfactory and people who are satisfied will continue doing business with the company (Mark,2018).
2.1 PRODUCTS
Every business and organization have their own product to sell and services to give for their customer. Gokul Yoga that operates as a yoga school and a wellness centre offers their product through the different types of yoga there is for people to choose according to their preference. They have eight types of yoga to offer to their customer from Hatha yoga, Vinyasa yoga, Mysore yoga, Broga yoga, Slow yoga, Restorative yoga, Kid yoga and lastly Prenatal yoga. The most common type of yoga that is practised in Gokul Yoga is the Hatha yoga, which is suitable for people who is a first timer or just started doing yoga as Hatha yoga is classed in the beginner level. Based on their schedule for yoga classes, Hatha yoga have seven different classes throughout the week and there is only two class a week for Vinyasa yoga. This is because Vinyasa yoga is considered to be one of the most advanced yoga practice that is made especially for people who have been practising yoga for a long time. Other than that, they offer prenatal yoga for pregnant moms who wants to be involved in wellness activities during their pregnancy.
Picture 4: Mass class yoga in Gokul Yoga
(Source: Trip Advisor Official Website)
2.2 SERVICES
The services that they offer for their customer is the yoga classes that is scheduled throughout the week. Gokul yoga practise a walk in yoga session that is open for anyone to join according to the schedule that they promote in their social medias. A mass yoga session that is led by their registered and certified yoga instructor is the first type of services they have. This type of yoga session usually receive at least twenty attendees from local people, foreigner who lives in Kota Kinabalu, and sometimes the tourists. A mass yoga session is charged for RM 30 for a one hour yoga session in their studio. As for our case study, we tried the Hatha yoga in a mass yoga session during the weekend at 6 in the evening in Suria Sabah shopping centre.
Personal yoga classes is also offered for customer who prefer a one-on-one session with their yoga teacher. The customer will have to make an appointment with Gokul Yoga for his personal yoga session and they usually charge a higher price for a one-on-one yoga session which is RM 150 for a personal yoga class. The reason to this is because the yoga teacher will spend more time on giving a better understanding on how to do each pose perfectly step by step. A personal yoga class allow the customer to have a more relaxed session while doing yoga while getting all the extra information and knowledge about yoga from his yoga teacher as well as being able to ask question on anything about yoga for a more profound meaning behind what they are doing. Other than that, this enhance the experience for the customer and most customer who engage in personal yoga classes can easily practise what they learn at home.
Lastly, small group and corporate yoga classes. As their business grow, they receive different demand from different type of customers who come to their wellness centre. Some would prefer a mass yoga class and some would prefer a one-on-one yoga class, but they also receive customers who prefer to have a yoga session with their own group of people with the yoga teacher. Apart from that, they also give a corporate group yoga classes. For big organization, it is common for them to send their employees to have an outside activities that improves their wellbeing. For these type of yoga classes, they will have to discuss on their number of people and what type of yoga that they would prefer to do. The prices varies depending on these factors.
Gokul Yoga also held training session every year for yoga practitioner who wants to be certified and pursue career in the sector. For next year in 2019 the session will be starting around August for a 200 hours yoga training for the GOKUL HATHA teacher Training Courses and on the 8th November until 1st December 2019 is for a 300 hours GOKUL VINYASA Teacher Training Courses. The training would not only be done by practicing the yoga movement, but also studying by using the book which is titled as Light on Yoga: Yoga Dipika by B.K.S. lyengar and the other book would be, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Edwin F Bryant. The two books will be used for the theory class and it is not necessary for students to buy the book first before coming to the centre because it would be provided by the management as it is already included in the package.
Figure 4 and 5: Books that is being used in the training programme
(Sources: Gokul Yoga Official Website)
3.0 INVESTMENT AND HUMAN RESOURCE
Gokul Yoga in Suria Sabah is a franchise type of business. Generally, Gokul Yoga was originated from Bali, where the main branch is located. Opening up a franchise branch involve the owner of the business who is known as the franchisor to give authority and license as a third party the right to operate a business under their brand with a franchisee fee. The fee can be paid upfront by the franchisee to the franchisor or an ongoing fee depending on the contract that has been agreed by both parties. As for Gokul Yoga, the franchisee had to make a bank loan in order to have enough capital to open up a new branch in Kota Kinabalu. They have invested roughly RM 75000 on their capital to pay for franchisee fee and other monetary activities in the early development stage. The capital is needed to buy all of the equipment required for teaching Yoga. In Gokul yoga, facilities are prepared, such as the yoga mat and yoga block for their customer to use.
Another investment made by Gokul Yoga would be the training programme for their yoga instructor. This is in term of a longer view of investment where they expected good outcomes in return. To maintain and develop the skill of their yoga instructors, they invested money on an extensive yoga training to send the employees for yoga courses to improve their skill. This is because to make sure that the performance of each staff is consistent and standardized. The staffs will be sent to the retrieve centre in Bali, Indonesia, their main branch, to learn more about yoga and how to convey or deliver their services as a potential yoga practitioner. The training would be taking place for around a week to be completed.
Finally, for other employees who is not a yoga instructor they also need a certain qualification to be a part of the GOKUL Yoga employees, where they need to have a good communication skill in order to become a customer services officer. This is because they will be the first one who will be interacting with the customers and dealing with promotional activity. Besides, the front offices will be the first part of the organization where the customer would interact with first before they actually experience the services and product they offered. One of the qualifications to be a good front desk officer is their communication skill with other people and ability to explain the information.
4.0 CONCLUSION
In conclusion, our case study has ended successfully during our assignment project. Through the chance given for us to experience and learn more about health and wellness organization, we are able to differentiate each organization and businesses according to the products and services they offer for their customer. As for the organization that we have picked, Gokul Yoga, we now have more knowledge on how this business operate how it was established, to practitioner trainings before in giving them the proper skill to execute their occupational health and wellness job as a skilled yoga practitioner.
Not only that, the impact of this project would be on how it opened our perspective on the subject of health and wellness by seeing how much it affects the people in the industry and the people who engage with the activities. In Gokul Yoga, they are very encouraging in term of career growth and the wellbeing of their customer as yoga helps people in many different way from spiritual healing to as simple as a restorative effort for oneself.
Our case study and knowledge development work is carried out by Natasya S., Cynthia R., and Mohd Faiz, whose findings informed further information on our group assignment.
Reference List
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