Case studies

Introduction

Body20, South Africa’s largest fitness franchise and a global pioneer in Electro-Muscle Stimulation (EMS) fitness, is on a mission to change lives — by unlocking the potential of its members, franchisees, and their teams.

As the pioneering force behind EMS training in the country, Body20 South Africa is the foundation of a powerful global brand that has successfully expanded into the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and New Zealand.

In the U.S., Body20 has been recognised among the top 5% of the fastest-growing private companies by the prestigious 2024 Inc. 5000 list - a testament to the brand’s explosive growth and strong business model.

From its roots in South Africa to its momentum on the global stage, Body20 is redefining what’s possible in fitness. This growth story is remarkable, but not accidental. It’s the result of a proven franchise system, data-driven operations, and an unwavering commitment to helping members reach their goals through cutting-edge technology and a unique holistic approach to wellness.

In the competitive world of fitness and franchising, how did Body20 get it right?

“Franchisee enablement has been central to Body20’s growth story. We firmly believe that when our franchisees succeed, the brand succeeds. That’s why we’ve built robust systems, tools, and support structures to empower every studio owner to operate at their best. From data-driven decision-making and world-class training to ongoing marketing, operations, and tech support, Body20’s franchise model is designed to create confident, high-performing business owners. Our mission is not only to grow the brand but to grow people”, says Marketing Manager, Johan Laas.

Body20’s commitment to growing its people underpins strategic investments like Activate Academy — a microlearning platform powered by Digemy.com that gives franchisees access to the tools and training needed to deliver consistent excellence — and to grow their businesses confidently within the Body20 network.

The Secret to Scale: Consistency without Compromise through On-demand E-learning

Body20 has earned its place as a global fitness franchise to watch. But growth at this pace poses the challenge: how to keep the experience consistent as the network scales.

For franchises, growth depends on repeatability. The most successful franchisors are masters at optimising and packaging operational processes so that they can be repeated, so customers from Cape Town to London receive the same service, care, and brand experience.

But maintaining consistency is no small feat. Each new franchisee brings a different background, team, and operating pressures. Traditional training — handbooks, in-person inductions, or annual workshops — don’t keep pace. They're hard to scale, easy to forget, and difficult to update. And when franchisees can’t remember their training, they can’t apply it, and inconsistencies creep in.

And for franchises, inconsistency is a risk multiplier. A single underperforming franchise doesn’t just hurt local revenue — it can erode brand equity across the network.

That’s why Body20 sought a solution that could:

• Provide scalable, always-on training without borders;
• Reinforce knowledge over time to ensure long-term retention and application;
• Empower franchisees and employees with just-in-time learning and a single source of truth.

The result? Activate Academy — a microlearning platform powered by Digemy.com that’s become a strategic enabler of Body20’s growth and performance.

Laas explains: “By investing in structured learning systems like Activate Academy, we’ve been able to mitigate risks around inconsistent product training. These systems ensure that every team member, regardless of location, is equipped with the same foundational knowledge, practical skills, and brand values. In so doing, we’ve protected both the integrity of the member experience and the long-term sustainability of our franchise network.”

Train Smarter, Grow Stronger: E-learning That Powers Performance

Activate isn’t just a library of online training modules — it’s a living, evolving system designed for the realities of scaling a performance-driven franchise.

Powered by Digemy.com’s web-based microlearning platform, Activate is accessible on any smart device. There’s no need for complex software installations or expensive systems — just intuitive, independent access to high-impact training, available anytime, anywhere.

The platform reflects the same philosophy Body20 applies to fitness: train smarter, not longer.

Just as Body20 members see real results through short, consistent EMS sessions, franchise teams build lasting capability through short, consistent learning experiences:

• Body20 authors and maintains over 20 hours of tailored multimedia content using Digemy’s intuitive content creation tools.
• Training is delivered in bite-sized modules, built for easy absorption, repetition, and real-world application.
• Digemy’s Recap Room reinforces knowledge through spaced repetition — learners “level up” each time they revisit content, strengthening memory muscles until information is locked in for the long term.
• The platform acts like a personal trainer for your brain — Digemy’s adaptive learning engine identifies each learner’s individual knowledge gaps and dynamically reinforces weaker areas to close them.
• Gamification and learning incentives motivate learners to keep going, creating a culture of healthy competition, voluntary engagement, and continuous improvement.

This isn’t checkbox learning. It’s habitual, reinforced performance training — designed to scale excellence and enable entrepreneurial franchisees to thrive.

Reflecting on the features of the platform, Laas had this to say: “Mobile-first access and gamification have definitely been important most of our coaches are late millennials and Gen-Alphas, and so they are more inclined to quickly log in on their phones for a few minutes a day, especially since there’s a leaderboard for some friendly competition. However, the Recap Room has made the most significant impact on the performance of the coaches – our previous platform had no means of reinforcing knowledge, so things would be quickly forgotten. The nature of Activate and repetition has significantly reduced the fall-off of expertise”.

Activate has become more than a training platform — it’s a strategic operating system that supports Body20’s brand consistency, customer experience, and rapid growth.

From Consistency to Confidence: Empowering Franchisees to Win

Activate hasn’t just streamlined training at Body20 — it’s helped redefine franchise enablement.

Through the platform, franchisees and their teams enjoy on-demand access to a single source of truth, reducing uncertainty, improving service consistency, and accelerating operational readiness. Whether onboarding a new hire, or honing sales skills, knowledge is immediately available — mobile, modular, and memorably reinforced.

The impact is visible across the Body20 network:

• Faster onboarding and shorter time-to-competence for new franchise teams
• Higher engagement rates, driven by gamified learning and rewards
• Increased knowledge retention, through personalised reinforcement pathways
• A shift from once-off training to habitual, ongoing learning
• More confident franchisees and empowered employees, consistently delivering the Body20 experience across the network

“Since the launch of the Activate platform, there has been a noticeable improvement in sales conversion among those who engage regularly, as well as improved standards regarding the EMS training side of things. There is also noticeably more proficiency around integrating our peripheral service offerings, like InBody and the Nutrition Doctor service.”

Agility in Action

The platform has also strengthened Body20’s operational agility. As new processes, programs, and products are introduced, the platform makes it simple to cascade updates across the entire network — ensuring that every franchise, no matter where it’s located, is aligned to the brand’s latest evolution.

When franchisees are empowered with the right tools and the right knowledge at the right time, performance becomes predictable — and scale becomes sustainable.

IN CONCLUSION: Scaling Excellence, Empowering Growth

Body20’s success isn’t just built on ambition — it’s built on preparation.

Through its partnership with Digemy.com, Body20 has transformed training into a strategic advantage: reinforcing excellence, empowering franchisees, and embedding operational agility into the DNA of the business.

“Activate is a cornerstone in supporting the brand’s growth ambitions by delivering scalable, consistent, and high-impact training across the franchise network. As Body20 expands into new markets and brings on a new group of franchisees and coaches, Activate ensures that every team member—regardless of location—has access to the same high-quality training. By centralising knowledge and promoting operational excellence, Activate will enhance franchisee confidence, reduce onboarding time, and maintain the brand’s strong reputation for quality and innovation as it grows”.

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About Body20

Body20 is an award-winning tech-driven fitness franchise. Through Electro Muscular Stimulation (EMS), Body20 members achieve significant physical improvements with minimal time commitment. A leading franchise in the fitness industry, Body20 offers a lucrative opportunity to prospective franchisees with strong unit economics, efficient operations and holistic training methodology for sustained success. With a strategic approach to member retention, Body20 maximises physical and mental well-being for members and economic opportunity for franchisees. To learn more about Body20 and its franchise opportunities, visit: https://body20franchise.co.za/.

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Insight

Despite an Learning Management System (LMS) and frequent in-person and virtual training sessions, pharmaceutical giant, Cipla Medpro was struggling with low learner engagement and training retention, impacting operations and performance. In an environment with a large deskless salesforce where product knowledge is key, Cipla recognised the need for a radically revised approach to training.

Idea

Mobile workforces need mobile training solutions that facilitate rapid upskilling aligned with product development. A mobile-first, reinforced micro-learning academy featuring rapid authoring tools for content creation proved the best solution for Cipla. We white labelled our learning engine and empowered the Cipla content team to create their own courses.

Impact

Transforming desktop and in-person long format training into mobile micro-learning had significant impact on both training impact and operational efficiency.

In the past, the sales team could only learn at a desktop - a major barrier to learning for a mobile salesforce. By enabling mobile learning, 95% of learners accessed the platform via smartphone, with 79% of learning occurring outside of core working hours. Gamification also contributed to an overall 42x increase in learner engagement, with 75% of learners accessing the platform every single day.

While engagement and completion rates increased, the biggest impact was in knowledge retention. We can't apply what we can't remember. And, without repetition and reinforcement, we forget up to 80% of what we learn within a day. Before each course, we tested and measured the knowledge levels of learners to identify gaps and tailor learning journeys geared to close those gaps. When starting on Digemy, the base knowledge of the sales representatives on training material averaged 32%. Through daily training interventions through Digemy's platform, this increased to 83% in just 4 months, with 82% of sales representatives 100% up to date with their learning plans, and only 5% falling below the 70% progress level.

By implementing Digemy's unique reinforced micro-learning platform, Cipla transformed training from a transactional, just-in-case tick box exercise to transformational just-in-time learning that sales representatives looked forward to, daily.

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“ By implementing the Digemy Knowledge Partner in Cipla, we have increased the engagement and knowledge levels of our employees significantly. Their ability to break down courses into granular levels and display the results using active dashboards enable us to analyse our learning environment within seconds, without having to use any additional business analytics. We can now measure the knowledge growth of our learners, see which learners are struggling with what content and why, and also incentivise performers and link their knowledge growth to KPI’s. Digemy’s service is responsive and professional, and they are always willing to add and develop to their existing platform to meet our needs.  All in all a great experience.” - Jacques Van Staden | Chief Operations Officer

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Insight

Africa Seeds Group is a specialised seed, fertilizer, and agrochemical producer and distributor, primarily focused on serving the developing farmer market in South Africa. Their extensive range of vegetable and agronomy seeds, fertilizers, and other agrochemicals are tailored to meet the needs of farming enterprises of every size—from small home gardens to large-scale commercial farms, as well as institutional customers such as government entities.

The group sources its products from a diverse range of suppliers across the agricultural value chain, ensuring consistent access to top-quality products. Africa Seeds Group is deeply committed to supporting their customers, providing them with the training, knowledge, and resources necessary to achieve successful harvests. Their state-of-the-art packing facility offers flexibility in packaging and pack sizes to cater to individual customer needs.

Farmers are constantly challenged by external factors beyond their control, such as unpredictable weather conditions, pests, and market fluctuations. As a seed and agro-input provider, Africa Seeds Group recognised that the success of these farmers directly impacts their own success. Ensuring that farmers have best practices at their fingertips is crucial; it empowers them to make informed decisions and practically apply this knowledge, giving them a better chance of success.

However, smaller-scale farmers often lack the comprehensive support provided to large commercial farmers. These developing farmers previously had to communicate their specific questions via email, WhatsApp, or phone, relying on technical officers to respond as promptly as possible. This method often led to delays and inconsistent support, impacting the farmers' ability to maximise their yields.

Africa Seeds Group sought to bridge this gap by offering a more structured and accessible solution, enhancing farming practices and contributing to the growth of agricultural communities, one successful farm at a time.

Idea

Recognising the limitations of traditional facilitated training, Africa Seeds Group partnered with Digemy to introduce a more effective and accessible learning solution for farmers. Traditional training methods, often conducted in person, are plagued by a significant drop in knowledge retention—studies show that within 24 hours of training, much of the information is forgotten. This lack of retention poses a critical challenge, particularly for farmers who need to apply what they’ve learned directly in the field.

To address this issue, Digemy introduced a mobile micro-learning platform designed to provide just-in-time support to farmers when and where they need it most. This innovative approach combines tailored reinforcement with mobile accessibility, ensuring that crucial farming knowledge is not only delivered but reinforced daily so that it can be retained and applied effectively.

The mobile micro-learning academy offers a comprehensive curriculum that covers essential farming practices such as:

• Field Preparation: Teaching farmers how to prepare their fields for optimal planting conditions.
• Fertilization and Irrigation: Providing guidance on how to fertilize and irrigate crops correctly to ensure healthy growth.
• Disease Identification and Management: Equipping farmers with the knowledge to proactively identify crop diseases and apply effective remedies.

By delivering these lessons in bite-sized, easily digestible modules, farmers can access the information they need right from their fields, allowing them to make informed decisions in real-time. This approach not only enhances knowledge retention but also empowers farmers to implement best practices that lead to tangible results.

Moreover, the mobile micro-learning academy is offered to farmers at no cost, making it an invaluable resource for those who may not have access to traditional education or training programs. As farmers adopt these best practices, they are able to produce higher quality crops, which command better prices in the market. This ultimately leads to a more profitable farming operation, benefiting both the farmers and Africa Seeds Group, whose success is intrinsically linked to the success of the farmers they serve.

Impact

The introduction of Digemy’s platform led to transformative results for Africa Seeds Group and its network of farmers:

• Widespread Adoption: Six months after the platform's launch, approximately 50,000 farmers across six countries in southern Africa had accessed the training. As Africa Seeds Group continues to expand the platform with more crop-related courses, even more farmers across the continent will benefit from the training.
• Enhanced Farming Practices: Farmers who participated in the training demonstrated an improvement in applying best practices, contributing to better crop yields across various regions.
• Increased Access and Engagement: With mobile access, more farmers were able to engage with the training modules, which were designed to be accessible and relevant to their daily work routines. The ease of accessing training on-the-go meant that farmers could learn without disrupting their workday.
• Improved Knowledge Retention: The bite-sized, interactive format coupled with tailored reinforcement, contributed to knowledge retention, ensuring that farmers were better equipped to maintain and enhance their farming practices over time.

Leadership at Africa Seeds Group noted the positive impact on both productivity and morale, as farmers felt more empowered and supported in their roles. The success of this initiative underscores the importance of providing accessible, relevant training to the backbone of Africa’s agricultural industry.

If your organisation is looking to empower a field workforce with practical, impactful training, Digemy offers solutions that meet the challenges of deskless environments head-on.

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