Building The Bridge Between Consumer And Enterprise Wellness

The wellness technology world is divided – consumer vs. enterprise (i.e. employer sponsored wellness).

Over the past few years the consumer wellness technology market has seen a number of major wins fueled by the smartphone health app craze and wearable device proliferation. Consumer wellness technology is now mainstream. Walk down the street and you’ll see someone wearing a Fitbit. Go to a park and you’ll see someone running with a smartphone.

Unfortunately, employer wellness hasn’t benefited from the same innovation and recent success that consumer wellness has seen. Enterprise wellness technology remains outdated and clunky. Rather than sleek, easy-to-use wellness technology, the enterprise too often relies on clunky and confusing wellness portals and cheap clip-on pedometers that break within a week and require manual entry.

Rather than develop together and leverage the best from each – consumer and enterprise wellness technology are set on distinct paths, often developed in separate silos. Their separation is ironic given that the end user of each market is the same (employees are consumers).

When we look at wellness technology, we see this division (consumer vs. enterprise) and believe it’s unnecessary and counterproductive.

We also see opportunity.

We envision a bridge – a bridge that connects the best of consumer wellness to employers. This bridge allows employers to leverage consumer-oriented wellness technology in a corporate setting. There is no need to force employees to use rigid and outdated web portals when employees (as consumers) are already voluntarily using consumer wellness technology. If one of the goals of enterprise wellness is to have high user participation, doesn’t it make sense to start with something that employees are already using?

This bridge must go beyond simply connecting consumer wellness technology to the enterprise. To meet the needs of the enterprise, corporate wellness program managers must be able to manage consumer technologies in a simple and resource-efficient manner. This bridge must also provide access to features that make wellness successful in an enterprise or group setting – rewards, challenges, teams, etc.

Today, we’re building this bridge. Come take a look at the future of employer wellness…