How iFIT’s Tech Overhaul is Creating the Future of Fitness

In the hyper-competitive world of connected fitness, selling a piece of hardware is no longer enough. Today’s consumers demand a seamless, intelligent and deeply personal digital ecosystem that wraps around their lifestyle, anticipates their needs and travels with them from their living room to a hotel on the other side of the world.

A new battleground has emerged and iFIT is meeting the challenge with one of the industry’s most comprehensive and ambitious technological transformations. As the parent company behind iconic brands like NordicTrack, FreeMotion, Reform Rx and ProForm, iFIT is not just modernising its technology stack, it’s rebuilding it from the ground up.

At the helm of the monumental undertaking is Jason McMurdie, Senior Vice President of Technology. Jason’s diverse background in aerospace engineering and cross-industry ERP consulting provides him with a unique perspective on transformation. At iFIT, he applies this experience to help the company strategically position itself for a data-driven, AI-enabled and customer-focused future.

In just under two years, his team has embarked on a journey to replace decades of legacy infrastructure, implement cutting-edge platforms and forge strategic partnerships that are not only enabling global expansion but fundamentally redefining how it operates.

The mandate for modernisation

Every major transformation begins with a catalyst, a moment of recognition that the old ways are no longer sufficient for the road ahead. For iFIT, the moment was the realisation that its legacy IT infrastructure was acting as a brake on its ambitions. It was sitting on a goldmine of information, but it was fragmented, siloed and slow.

“Our CEO Kevin Duffy calls it a ‘data swamp’; it’s difficult to correlate and make sense of what’s truly happening in real time,” explains Jason. 

With data in disparate systems, updated at different intervals—some hourly, some daily and some every 48 hours—making informed, real-time strategic decisions was a near-impossible task. In an era of volatile economic conditions and complex global supply chains, teams were left trying to “second guess where they think our position is” using spreadsheets.

The realisation sparked the first and most fundamental pillar of iFIT’s transformation: a complete overhaul of its core systems. The team executed a flawless migration of its infrastructure, moving the bulk to AWS Cloud and co-locating remaining systems in a state-of-the-art facility. The transition was so seamless that, according to Jason, “the business was unaware that we’d moved everything overnight”.

With a modern cloud foundation in place, the next step was to tackle the heart of the enterprise: the ERP system. iFIT is in the midst of a global rollout of SAP S/4HANA, a project Jason describes as a “keystone foundation block for our strategy going forward”. The goal is not just to replace an ageing system but to create a single, stable, real-time source of truth for the entire organisation.

“The sooner we transition to SAP, the sooner we can provide real-time visibility of inventory levels, shipment status, container tracking, incoming orders, accurate forecasts and real-time financials – all instantly accessible,” he explains. “That’s going to be a game changer.”

This foundation is essential to iFIT’s core mission: operating at the speed of its customers, who demand instant answers and reliable delivery commitments.

Engineering the customer journey with AI and agility

With the back-end transformation well under way, iFIT has simultaneously focused on transforming its customer-facing technology. The goal is to create a frictionless, intelligent and highly-personalised journey that spans from the first click on an e-commerce site to the daily interaction with an AI-powered workout coach.

A headless commerce revolution

iFIT is moving away from monolithic legacy e-commerce platforms and embracing a modern, headless architecture powered by Commerce Layer, Content Stack and Stripe. The microservices-based approach decouples the front-end customer experience from the back-end commerce engine, providing immense flexibility and speed. It has already transitioned its US, Canada, Germany and UK sites with zero business disruption.

The new architecture allows iFIT to be incredibly agile. Jason points out that working with partners like Stripe enables them to rapidly introduce diverse and country-specific payment options, from Klarna to other local financing solutions. “It took months to do what should be a straightforward change,” he says of the old system. Now, new functionality can be implemented in a fraction of the time, making it easier for customers to buy and enhancing iFIT’s ability to adapt to local market preferences.

Intelligent service and proactive support

Perhaps one of the most impactful areas of iFIT’s digital enablement is its work with Salesforce. Leveraging Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud and the Einstein AI platform, iFIT is fundamentally changing how it interacts with its six million members.

The initial focus has been on optimising the contact centre. “We’re working with Salesforce on leveraging a lot of their AI capability,” continues Jason. “AgentForce for things like the traditional call deflection.” 

It enables AI-powered chatbots to handle common queries, such as order status or delivery changes, thereby freeing up human agents for more complex, value-added interactions.

Now, iFIT is taking innovation a step further by piloting a proof of concept with Salesforce to enable AI-powered, self-service troubleshooting. Jason explains: “If a customer says, ‘hey, I’ve got a squeaky belt on the apparatus,’ instead of calling and speaking with a customer service rep, can they resolve it themselves? We’re working with Salesforce and their AgentForce platform, using their AI tool to guide the customer through a series of questions, direct them to the right knowledge article and provide a summary for quick understanding.”

The philosophy extends to delivery. By integrating systems, iFIT can provide real-time SMS updates, from packing and shipping to last-mile delivery, giving customers control and transparency over the arrival of their equipment. It’s all part of a holistic strategy to use technology to build trust and reduce friction at every touchpoint.

Conquering new frontiers: strategic partnership with Alibaba in China

iFIT’s global ambition is demonstrated by its strategic and well-planned expansion into China. Understanding that China operates within a distinct technological ecosystem and has unique consumer behaviours, iFIT recognised that a standard, copy-and-paste strategy wouldn’t work. Instead, success would mean building strong, local partnerships tailored to the market.

“China is a very different market to the rest of the world for lots of reasons,” Jason notes. “And as part of that, you need to have a very experienced in-country partner that you can work with and who understands the market. So to do that, we partnered with Alibaba.”

The partnership with Alibaba goes far beyond simple cloud hosting. To navigate the ‘Great Firewall’, iFIT has worked with Alibaba and AWS to replicate its entire content streaming infrastructure within China, ensuring a fast and reliable experience for Chinese users.

The collaboration addresses the unique nature of the Chinese digital economy, which eschews credit cards and email in favour of integrated ecosystems like Alipay and Weipay.

iFIT is leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure to run a separate SAP Business One system specifically for the region. Notably, it is implementing Salesforce using Alibaba’s bespoke extensions, which are tailored to the nuances of the Chinese market, encompassing marketing approaches and data privacy compliance. Alibaba’s expertise has been invaluable in helping iFIT structure its data and operations to comply with local laws.

What began as a vendor relationship for cloud infrastructure has blossomed into a true strategic partnership. “They’re being very proactive,” Jason says of the Alibaba team. “That’s helped us a lot. It’s having a partner that can come to you and say, ‘I know this isn’t something you’ve asked us for, but we have this, or we’ve seen this. Is this something that would resonate with you guys?’.” The collaborative spirit is accelerating iFIT’s roadmap in the region, turning a potential three-year plan into a present-day reality.

The human effect: leading transformation from within

Driving all the technological change at iFIT is a profound focus on the human element.

Jason makes his philosophy clear: successful transformation depends on the impact it has on both customers and employees. He has made it his mission to transform the IT department from a reactive “order-taking organisation” into a proactive, strategic business partner.

The results of the cultural shift are quantifiable and staggering: “When I joined iFIT, we did a survey and it was negative 45. In less than two years, we’ve taken it from -45 to +11 and we expect that trajectory to continue,” says Jason.

The turnaround wasn’t driven by a “rip and replace” approach to staffing, but by investing in and empowering the existing team. Jason’s leadership is rooted in trust, transparency and a commitment to growth. He introduced formal career paths, gave employees ownership of their development and encouraged cross-functional movement, such as a network engineer exploring project management. 

His guiding principle is clear: “Train people well enough that they can leave, but create an environment where they don’t want to.”

Jason’s people-first philosophy guides the introduction of technology across the business. A strong advocate of the “crawl, walk, run” approach, he prioritises honesty and transparency. He and his team, in partnership with HR and the individual business units, are clear from the outset that adopting complex systems like SAP comes with challenges. By setting realistic post-go-live milestones and training users to handle real-world scenarios—not just ideal use cases—they reduce anxiety and build confidence. 

“The biggest success factor in any transformation,” Jason goes on, “is focusing on the user and walking a mile in their shoes.”

He is quick to credit his leadership team for these successes, naming Lisa McDaniel (PMO), Emily Cellar (Infrastructure & Security), Nigel Sopp (Enterprise Applications), Brian Peters (Data & Analytics) and Wade Nielsen (E-commerce) as the key drivers of the change. 

“We’ve yet to drop the ball. And that’s because of these very smart people in the team, and the incredible energy and enthusiasm of their individual teams .”

The road ahead: accelerating innovation

With the foundational platforms for ERP, e-commerce and data now being put in place, the next 12 to 18 months at iFIT will be about leveraging and acceleration. The pace of change will not slow down. Instead, iFIT will begin to unlock the advanced capabilities and leverage the inbuilt AI tools to allow us to continue to optimise business process efficiencies.

The focus is now shifting from laying the foundation to building upon it. With clean, real-time data flowing from SAP and Snowflake, iFIT’s analytics engines will deliver more profound insights into customer behaviour, shaping everything from supply chain decisions to personalised workout recommendations from the AI Coach. It plans to advance its proprietary AI, exploring innovations like those tested with Alibaba, where an American trainer can appear in a new video setting, speaking fluent Mandarin in their voice and tone.

However, rapid innovation will be guided by thoughtful, strategic decision-making.

Jason stresses the importance of managing the business’s capacity to absorb change, cautioning: “You need to be aware of the shock waves that can impact not only those directly affected in the part of the organisation, but the outliers.” 

The key will be to keep moving forward without overwhelming the very people the technology is meant to serve. For iFIT, the transformation is a continuous journey, not a destination. By marrying a state-of-the-art, interconnected technology stack with a deeply human-centric approach to change, it is not just about building a more efficient business; it is about creating a more effective one. The organisation is forging a more intelligent, responsive and personal future for fitness—a future where technology and humanity work in concert to help millions achieve a healthier connected lifestyle.