Unified 800+ franchise locations on a single platform — replacing fragmented tools with centralized operations

Overview

Gracie Barra is one of the largest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu organizations in the world, operating a franchise network of over 800 schools across multiple countries. Each school manages memberships, payments, scheduling, belt progression, events, and merchandise — the operational backbone of a martial arts franchise.

The challenge wasn’t any single school. It was the network. With 800+ locations operating independently, Gracie Barra had no consistent way to manage operations, track members, or maintain the brand standards that make a franchise work.

The challenge

Growth was outpacing the tools and processes Gracie Barra had in place:

• Fragmented operations. Each school used its own mix of tools — spreadsheets, standalone apps, paper logs, or nothing at all. There was no standard system for managing memberships, payments, or scheduling across locations
• Inconsistent member experience. A student training at one school couldn’t easily visit another location. Cross-school attendance required manual verification by staff, creating friction for members and extra work for instructors
• No centralized visibility. Headquarters had no real-time view into membership numbers, revenue, attendance patterns, or belt progression across the network. Reporting was manual and always incomplete
• Difficult to scale. Onboarding a new school meant starting from scratch — setting up tools, training staff on ad-hoc processes, and hoping for consistency. Every new location added operational complexity instead of leveraging shared infrastructure
• Brand standardization at risk. Without consistent systems, the member experience varied widely from school to school. The franchise model depends on consistency, and the tooling couldn’t deliver it

The solution

Kinetic partnered with Gracie Barra to build a unified, global school management platform that brought every school onto a single system while giving headquarters the oversight it needed.

• Centralized member management. A single platform handles member onboarding, profiles, and account management across all locations. Every school works from the same member data, and students can train at any location without manual verification
• Unified payment processing. Membership fees, event registrations, and merchandise sales flow through a consistent payment system — giving schools standardized billing and giving headquarters financial visibility across the network
• Attendance and scheduling. Class schedules, attendance tracking, and capacity management run on the same platform across all schools. Instructors log attendance digitally instead of on paper, and headquarters can see participation trends across the network
• Belt progression tracking. Student advancement through the belt system is tracked centrally, ensuring consistency in grading standards and giving instructors a clear view of each student’s journey — even when they train at multiple locations
• Phased rollout at scale. Kinetic’s architecture supported onboarding schools in phases rather than requiring a single big-bang migration. New schools are brought onto the platform through a repeatable process, enabling rapid expansion without sacrificing consistency

Results

Gracie Barra transformed a fragmented franchise operation into a unified, scalable system:

• Standardized operations across 800+ schools. Every location runs on the same platform with the same workflows, replacing the patchwork of disconnected tools
• Seamless cross-school experience. Members train at any Gracie Barra school worldwide without manual verification — their membership, attendance history, and belt rank travel with them
• Reduced administrative burden. Instructors and school staff spend less time on manual data entry, payment tracking, and scheduling — and more time teaching
• Centralized headquarters visibility. Leadership has real-time insight into membership, revenue, attendance, and progression across the entire global network
• Scalable foundation for growth. New schools onboard onto a proven platform with standardized processes, enabling Gracie Barra to continue expanding without proportional increases in operational complexity

Before and after

	Before	After
School operations	Independent, ad-hoc tools	Unified global platform
Member experience	Manual verification at each school	Seamless cross-school access
Payments	Per-school, inconsistent	Centralized processing
Belt tracking	Local records, no standard	Global progression tracking
HQ visibility	Manual, incomplete reports	Real-time network-wide dashboards
New school onboarding	Start from scratch	Repeatable, phased rollout