Last week, I was invited to attend the inaugural OASYS Spring Conference at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Nashville, TN, aka Music City. Formerly known as HTSN (Home Technology Specialists of Nationwide), the group has been rebranded and infused with new energy as Oasys Residential Technology Group. This spring gathering was its inaugural event launching a new brand, a new operating process, and – I have to say – a new attitude.
It was an eye-opening experience that helped me realize just how serious Nationwide is at cementing Oasys as the bedrock foundation of its buying group dominance.
See more on Oasys Residential Technology Group
Nashville is a really fun place. On a random Tuesday night, the downtown was really hopping with the main street packed with one club next to another – all featuring live music with mostly country bands (but not exclusively country). The street was packed with mostly young singles and couples making the circuit. Like New Orleans, many of the clubs have doors or windows that open onto the street so all can hear the music and the fun going on inside.
A Palpable Air of Anticipation and Excitement
Not only that, but Nashville is also a great place to hold a technology conference.
Between my curiosity about this “new” group launching and my interest in revisiting Nashville (I was there once as a young man on a family vacation) I couldn’t resist their invitation. I’m glad I went – it is kind of amazing to witness a dramatic transformation taking place right in front of your eyes.
I arrived at the event on Monday, May 15th in time to attend the keynote presentation late that afternoon. Not knowing what to expect, I was surprised to find a smaller group than some of the other group events I have attended – but no less enthusiastic. In fact, there was a palpable air of anticipation, perhaps even excitement, buzzing around the now-Oasys dealers and vendors in attendance.
Azione Acquisition – The First Step Towards Nationwide’s Plans
In the past, HTSN was created as sort of an adjunct group to Nationwide, designed to provide a specialty organization for those members who are more technology-centric, as compared to Nationwide’s main membership which includes a mixture of furniture, appliance, and flooring members. There was a short-lived partnership between HTSN and another buying group – HTSA – and when that fell apart, the group continued to move forward and grow under the guidance of director Hank Alexander.
Then, in the Fall of 2021, Nationwide acquired Azione Unlimited, the more upscale group of pure-play custom integration specialists. Little did I know then, but this was the first step in the execution of Nationwide’s plan to build a whole entity that ends up having a much greater impact than the sum of its parts.
The Drive to 1,000
Earlier this year, Nationwide’s plan began to come into focus…or at least more public. At the Azione Unlimited Spring Conference in March, President Richard Glikes told the Azione membership that they were now part of an exciting new initiative called the “Drive to 1,000.” Glikes put up a slide that showed targeted membership numbers for existing Nationwide group brands, and – surprise…surprise – a new commercial group that would be launching later.
At the Azione conference, a slide was projected (see above) showing a breakdown that started with a yet-to-be-named (or created) commercial group with zero members that is expected to grow to 100 members. Azione was shown to have 280 members, which it plans to grow to 300 as part of this initiative. But with HTSN (at that time weeks away from rebranding) we saw its current membership at 250…with plans to more than double it to 600 members. Add those growth numbers up and you get 1,000 total members in three separate, highly-differentiated dealer buying groups.
A Bold Plan with Creative Twists
It’s a bold plan with many creative twists. Certainly, one of the most significant elements of their plan was the surprise hiring of Andy Orozco away from ProSource. Orozco, now Nationwide’s Senior VP of Custom Integration brings with him many years of industry experience, both on the factory side and on the large group side. Andy has been instrumental in putting the Drive to 1,000 plan together in combination with Nationwide’s Chief Member Advocate Tom Hickman, Azione’s Richard Glikes, Oasys’s Hank Alexander…as well as others in the Nationwide management hierarchy.
In custom integration overall, there are really three main buying groups serving the channel – Oasys/Azione is one of them – along with ProSource and HTSA. For the most part, while there are differences in style, there is little difference in substance between the groups. They all provide a roster of popular brands, and they all have negotiated deeper programs than are typically available to independent dealers.
One Thing Uncommon in Group Management: Innovation…Until Now
Groups also provide a lot of education on trends and technologies – as well as the fundamentals of running an integration company. They also engage in best business practice sharing, in which successful members pass along their business practices to their colleagues.
These are things that all groups do. But what I don’t find a lot of in the world of groups is innovation. They all basically provide the same services in essentially the same way.
So when I heard that Nationwide was taking a different path and doing something totally new…I was immediately intrigued. There are a couple of key elements to their plans. First, they plan to open their doors to emerging dealers and integrators. These new dealers are small, perhaps just a year or so from their initial launch. Revenues may only be a million or two, which means that they generally don’t qualify for either of the other two major groups.
The Emerging Integrator Strategy
But if you think about it, as Andy¹ Orozco said to me, “We all started there. Even the biggest integrator today started small.”
Oasys is going to capture that dealer. They are going to expand the industry by finding the most talented emerging dealers and welcoming them into a group environment where they can get the education, training, and ideas they need to turbocharge their growth. Another benefit is that when dealers join Oasys, they also become CEDIA members at the same time, saving them money and opening the door to CEDIA education which Oasys has licensed for use by its members.
Nationwide will create a cradle-to-grave opportunity in which as these dealers grow in their new-found Oasys knowledge. And when they’ve grown enough, they will at some point qualify to transition into the next step up – the Azione Unlimited group. At Azione, their journey will continue with that organization’s higher-level training and vendor list adding to their skill sets and business opportunities.
The First Group to Assemble a “Farm” System; Expanding the Industry
To me, this is an interesting strategy. In baseball terms, they are creating the industry’s first “farm league” or farm system. While other groups wait for perhaps years for star dealers to present themselves, Nationwide is looking at the young, aggressive, future stars of tomorrow…today. When they find them, they will sign them up, fully integrating them into the Nationwide ecosystem.
During the conference, I sat down with Hank Alexander and he noted that what’s really unique is that they are discovering a lot of opportunities with dealers that are not currently in groups. He also mentioned that there are dealers that play musical chairs moving from one group to the other – which really does nothing for the vendors, as it simply shifts dollars from one group to another. But Oasys plans on adding hundreds of new dealers, not from other groups, but from a new, rich, and unexploited resource of dealers. This expands the business opportunity for both Oasys and its vendors.
As we shared our plans with our vendor community, they’ve been incredibly receptive and very supportive.
Hank Alexander, OASYS Director
Alexander also noted that the publicity surrounding their efforts is already attracting new dealers. “In just the week leading up to this event, we’ve signed up seven-to-ten new members,” Alexander said.
But how will Oasys do this? How will they find these opportunities? Well it turns out, Oasys has a secret weapon.
Oasys Secret Weapon – A New Field Team
New to Oasys is a field support team whose mission is to support the expanding group membership. In this role, they will help group members be as successful as they can be by taking advantage of all available specials, maximizing their various group programs, and in general getting any and all of their support questions answered. In essence, the field team will help to grease the skids for success in the integration business.
In addition to this, the field team will be a primary input source for new members. They will find and vet potential new members to fill Oasys’ ranks. In this regard, they are much like talent scouts, seeking out and sorting through all available member opportunities to find those candidates most likely to be future superstars.
The new Oasys field team consists of: Jason Magdic (Manager, Member Support), Nicole Riddle (Director, Member Development), Carrie Fabrick² (Manager, Member Support), and Mark Spector (Manager, Member Support).
The Journey has Already Begun
As critical as the field team will be to the process, there are many more elements contributing to the plan…some yet to emerge. For example, that line on the slide at Azione marked “Commercial.” What’s up with that?
We don’t have a lot of details on that at the moment, but my understanding is that a new group will be launched in the commercial space. This will be built from the ground up by a yet-to-be-named Director. What is not completely sorted out yet is the degree to which there will be interactions between this new commercial group and the existing residential-focused groups.
The Commercial/Residential Crossover Business
Considering the fact that there is a small but significant level of crossover business (resi integrators doing commercial installations/commercial integrators doing resi installations), it makes sense to have some degree of combined or shared resources. However, Alexander says that is all being looked at now.
I believe this group will be announced in 2023, perhaps in the next few weeks as the finishing touches to the plan are being finalized now. But commercial is a market segment largely ignored or unexplored by any of the other major resi groups.
An Intense Focus on Education, Training, and Support
Finally, yet another part of the plan is an intense focus on CI education, training, and support. While this has always been a part of Oasys, the group is doubling down on that with even greater intensity. At this event, for example, major presentations were made by Jason Sayen (I am Sayen), Matt Bernath (Vital), Gregg Simmons (Snap One/Eagle Sentry), and Giles Sutton (CEDIA). These presentations were all on topics that were intensely targeted at integrators and presented a wealth of high-quality information. It was almost as though there were four keynote presentations – as these sessions were all deep-dives into topics that are key to the integration experience.
There was even more content than that, such as boardroom roundtable sessions, a presentation by a lighting design expert, and much more. It was an impressive program of expert content designed to help improve all members’ success in integration.
Will Nationwide Pull It Off?
So will Nationwide/Oasys pull it off? It seems to me that there is a long way to go for Oasys, but this event was an impressive start. They have a strategic plan, and this meeting was the first public step in executing against that plan.
I intend to keep a close eye on this group and follow their progress. But one thing is for sure – OASYS has arrived…
Learn more about Oasys by visiting oasysgroup.org.
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
1 – May 26, 2023 – 12:15 PM – Corrected a typo on the spelling of Andy’s first name (the “d” was mysteriously missing originally)
2 – May 26, 2023 – 12:25 PM – Corrected a typo on the spelling of Carrie Fabrick’s name (the “k” was missing in the original)
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