Real Green Systems CEO Joe Kucik shared a few industry insights in addition to company news during his opening remarks at Solutions 2016, the company’s users’ conference. The event, which kicked off Jan. 13 in Orlando, includes software sessions, education sessions and a vendor fair. It runs through Jan. 15.
Kucik projected an excellent 2016 for the lawn care market, and he pointed to the merger of TruGreen and Scotts LawnService late last year as one reason for his positive forecast.
“If I’m you, I would be very excited; 2016 could be a phenomenal year,” he said. “I would expect there’s going to be a lot of new customers available in every market (TruGreen and Scotts LawnService) are in.”
Despite the merger being good news for the market, Kucik acknowledged the deal results in the loss of a large portion of Real Green’s business. Scotts LawnService was the company’s second largest customer. It will transition off Real Green software and onto TruGreen’s system this year.
“We’ll be just fine, but any time you lose your second largest customer, that’s not a good day,” he said. Over the next few years, he expects the loss to make the company stronger because the move will bolster the businesses of the rest of the company’s customer base, he said.
Company news
The conference clocked its largest attendance ever at 600-plus, up from 462 last year, Kucik said. The company has more than 2,200 customers in the U.S. and 23 overseas.
He attributed the uptick in attendance to a growing market; moving the conference back one week; and moving to an all-weekday schedule versus hosting part of it on a Saturday, as it has in the past.
Major focuses for the company in recent months, Kucik said, include the integration of Synergetic Marketing, which had been a sister company, to Real Green. Since making the move a few months ago, more customers have adopted the MyLocal Marketing products Synergetic offers, Kucik said. In line with that move, Real Green sold back its 50 percent stake in Raleigh, N.C.-based digital marketing firm Real Green Analytics (now called LeadBuilder). Synergetic now offers those digital marketing services.
Other notable moves, Kucik said, include investments in staff (up to 136 employees from 122 over the last year), in IT infrastructure for hosting services and in the Service Assistant 5 team. In 2016, company plans to maintain a focus on divisions, an initiative of President Don Brown, and to find ways to diversify so it doesn’t do 75 percent of its business between November and March.
Updated 1/14/16 to correct the name of Real Green President Don Brown.
