ProGrasS Polska celebrates its birthday!

At the beginning of October 2022, the Polish company will blow out fifteen candles.

There is cause for celebration in Trzciana. ProGrasS Polska, partner of Selectline, is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary this year. Because of this joyful fact, we spoke to Eric Seijn about the past and where it stands at the moment.

ProGrasS Polska

Eric Seijn, owner of ProGrasS Polska, met his business partner when he was active in golf course consultancy in Poland. Fifteen years ago he set up ProGrasS Polska with this partner. The name ProGrass has been known for some time in the Netherlands. When Seijn and his business partner drank a beer together in 2007, the idea was born to start ProGrasS Polska. With a view to the European Football Championship in 2012, which would take place in Poland, among other places, he accepted the challenge. “It was a good starting point. We had about five years to work towards the European Championship,” said Seijn. It was a big change, as he had been active in golf all his life. It was a big change, since he had been active in golf all his life. Nevertheless, ProGrasS Polska quickly made a switch to a wider range of sports. This went up in a straight line. Today, the Polish company offers various products. The delivery program includes field marking, fertilization, grass seeds, mowing machines and professional grass maintenance machines.

Differences between the Netherlands and Poland

Eric Seijn has run companies in the Netherlands and Poland. He also saw differences between the two countries here: “We in the Netherlands are very direct. In Poland it's like, everything will be fine, it will be fine. In the Netherlands you sell something and it is yes or no. Here it is more about mediating and then a procedure with a lot of paperwork starts before, for example, 10 cans of Selectline paint can be delivered at all. That is still the case today.” He also explains why he enjoys running a company so much: “Everything related to running a business. The organization, purchasing, getting people to the right place and especially the service. That is especially important to us. We are not so much focused on one-off sales. We strongly believe in partnership. Fifteen years ago, that made us the organization we are today.”

Highlights

A lot has happened within ProGrasS Polska in the past fifteen years. Seijn discusses the best moments during this period: “There have been many highlights. Each year has its peculiarities. We started with one phone. When the company started to grow, we quickly moved to business premises. In a short time it became too small again. That's how we grew quickly. We are proud to be using our new business premises that we recently built and moved into, so that we can provide even better service to our customers. We did that by putting a lot of energy into it and working on the company with a lot of good people. It has been built brick by brick. We are also proud that major suppliers have found us and have given us the confidence to market their products.”

Field lines

ProGrasS Polska also supplies striping products in Poland. Among other things, the Polish company does business with 75% of all clubs active in the Ekstraklasa, the highest Polish division in football. Nevertheless, the local clubs provide the most turnover. The products that Selectline supplies to the Polish company receive positive feedback. The quality of Selectline's products was also one of the reasons why ProGrasS Polska saw something in a partnership. In addition, Eric Seijn is very satisfied with the contact with Lumiforte, the company behind Selectline. Seijn therefore indicates that he enjoys working with nice people around him.

The future of ProGrasS Polska

Now that the fifteenth anniversary of ProGrasS Polska is being celebrated, Eric Seijn already takes a look at the next fifteen years. “Of course we look ahead. By looking at how the market is developing at the moment, I hope we can continue to grow. The business is becoming more professional. We need to be able to offer the customer even more to increase the quality of their grass. The focus is certainly on the golf business. This is a business that lags behind in Poland. There is visible growth, but still steady. We have fantastic jobs, but this is something that is moving very slowly. There is still a lot of catching up to do in this area in the next fifteen years.”, said Eric Seijn. In addition, ProGrasS Polska wants to focus more on the products in their current range. Giving the products even more of a face is an objective that Seijn wants to meet in the short term. Finally, ProGrasS Polska wants to further roll out the import of tractors in the longer term.

Celebrations

The fifteenth anniversary is a reason for a number of festivities. Of course this is subject to the situation with COVID. A golf tournament is scheduled for October 4 for suppliers and customers. The day after, workshops are organized and ProGrasS Polska presents their machines. Finally, visitors are given a tour of the company and a toast is made to the successful fifteenth anniversary of ProGrasS Polska.

Selectline congratulates ProGrasS Polska on its fifteenth anniversary. Selectline also hopes to continue the energetic cooperation with ProGrasS Polska.