Sana & ASICS
How ASICS scaled one L&D team across a global workforce with Sana Learn
Inside ASICS EMEA's bet to hand learning to the entire business.
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Raquel Peña Alonso, Head of Talent
Company size
>1,000
Industry
Retail
Founded
1949
HQ
Hoofddorp, Netherlands
Challenge ASICS has spent over 75 years on a single conviction: that movement builds a sound mind in a sound body. A brand that needs no introduction, worn by athletes at every level, in every corner of the world.
When Raquel joined ASICS EMEA as Head of Talent in 2024, the people behind the brand had no home for learning. Training was pushed from HR: create content, offer a workshop, hope people show up. A lean L&D team couldn't keep up with a fast-growing, multilingual workforce across offices, warehouses, and stores.
And the knowledge that mattered most? Locked in the heads of experts across the business, with no easy way to surface it.
Outcome "I wanted something really future-proof. Something that would be the tool for us for the upcoming ten years." — Raquel
ASICS Academy rolled out on Sana Learn in two months, reaching near-full activation across EMEA at launch. The key shift was handing ownership of learning to the whole organization.
"It became so much bigger than just a learning management system. It became one home for learning and knowledge sharing across ASICS." — Mariya
2 months
to launch across EMEA
82%
of commercial team upskilled in two weeks
1000+
active learners, 86% MAU
Who owns learning now? Everyone.
Early in her career, Raquel saw L&D as the experts, the ones who made the courses and taught everyone else. Now she'd tell you the opposite.
“Most of the answers will not come from my team. They will come from the business. I see Sana Learn as the enabler for that.”
Raquel
The surprise wasn't whether people could create courses, but how much they wanted to. Edit mode in Sana Learn uses AI to turn a document or idea into a polished, translatable course in minutes — no instructional design experience needed. Finance now runs "finance for non-finance" sessions. Functions that never sought the spotlight started stepping into it.
“These are functions that wouldn't typically take the stage. That's really powerful, because we need to surface that knowledge.”
Raquel
Democratizing learning didn't shrink the team's role. Quite the opposite.
With knowledge sharing decentralised across the org, L&D could finally do what it was always meant to: see the gaps before the business does, and build for what's next.
“Sana Learn has been key for us to become a strategic partner.”
Raquel
L&D owns the business-critical topics. Subject-matter experts across the company own the rest. And AI handles the repetitive work in between.
“AI is an enabler. It lets us focus more on the personal elements.”
Raquel
That's the balance ASICS won't compromise on. Sana Learn scales the knowledge sharing. The human connection is what makes it stick.
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Mariya Georgieva, Learning & Talent Development Specialist
A fitting footnote
ASICS is an acronym for Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, the Latin for "a sound mind in a sound body," the philosophy the company was founded on in 1949. The word Sana had been sitting in the name the whole time. Fitting, given how aligned our two teams turned out to be.
“There is something very special about working with Sana. It's kindness, enthusiasm, and a readiness to go through whatever needs to be done to keep us moving forward.”
Mariya
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