How a 150-Year-Old Lawn Company Is Growing a Digital Revolution
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From Fertilizer to Fiber Optics
ScottsMiracle-Gro's unexpected tech transformation
When you think about digital transformation, a company that's been selling lawn seed since 1868 probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But according to informationweek.com, ScottsMiracle-Gro is undergoing exactly that kind of revolution under COO Matt Baxter's leadership. The company that made its name helping Americans grow greener grass is now planting the seeds of technological change across its entire operation.
The transformation isn't just about adding some new software—it's a fundamental rethinking of how a traditional physical products company operates in the digital age. Baxter, who spoke with informationweek.com in 2025, describes it as building 'a technology company that sells lawn and garden products' rather than a lawn and garden company that uses some technology. This shift in perspective is driving changes that reach from the factory floor to the customer's backyard.
The Digital Backbone of Growth
Building infrastructure for a new era of gardening
According to the report, Baxter's team is implementing what they call a 'digital backbone'—a comprehensive technology infrastructure that connects every aspect of the business. This isn't just about efficiency; it's about creating entirely new capabilities that simply weren't possible with traditional methods. The system integrates everything from supply chain management to customer engagement, creating a seamless flow of information across the organization.
Typically, companies in the agricultural sector have been slower to adopt digital technologies compared to other industries. The physical nature of the products, the seasonal nature of demand, and the traditionally conservative customer base have all contributed to this slower pace of change. But ScottsMiracle-Gro appears to be breaking from this pattern in a significant way.
The digital infrastructure they're building includes advanced data analytics capabilities that can process information from multiple sources—weather patterns, soil conditions, customer purchasing behavior, and inventory levels across thousands of retail locations. This integrated approach allows for much more sophisticated decision-making than was previously possible.
Smart Factories and Connected Supply Chains
How technology is transforming manufacturing and distribution
The manufacturing side of the transformation involves implementing what industry professionals call Industry 4.0 technologies—smart sensors, Internet of Things devices, and automated systems that can communicate with each other. According to informationweek.com, Baxter's team is installing these technologies across their production facilities to create what amount to 'smart factories' that can optimize themselves in real-time.
These connected systems monitor everything from raw material quality to production line efficiency, automatically adjusting processes to maintain optimal conditions. The report indicates that this has already led to significant improvements in product consistency and manufacturing efficiency. For a company that deals with biological materials like seeds and living organisms like the beneficial microbes in their soil products, this level of control is particularly valuable.
The supply chain transformation extends beyond the factory walls. The digital backbone connects manufacturing with distribution centers, retail partners, and even end customers. This creates visibility across the entire value chain, allowing the company to respond more quickly to changes in demand, optimize inventory levels, and reduce waste. In an industry where products have expiration dates and seasonal demand patterns create complex logistics challenges, this connectivity provides substantial competitive advantages.
Data-Driven Gardening
How analytics are changing the customer experience
Perhaps the most visible aspect of the transformation for consumers is the move toward data-driven gardening solutions. According to the report, ScottsMiracle-Gro is developing digital tools that help customers achieve better results with their products. These aren't just generic gardening apps—they're specifically designed to work with the company's products and provide personalized recommendations based on local conditions.
The systems use data about soil types, climate patterns, and even specific microclimates within individual yards to provide customized advice on when to plant, how much to water, and which products will work best. This represents a significant shift from the traditional one-size-fits-all approach that has characterized the lawn and garden industry for decades.
Industry standards in agricultural technology have been moving toward hyper-localized recommendations for several years, particularly in commercial farming. What makes ScottsMiracle-Gro's approach notable is bringing this level of precision to the consumer market. The company is essentially creating what amounts to precision agriculture for the backyard gardener—a concept that would have seemed like science fiction just a decade ago.
The Human Element of Digital Change
Managing cultural transformation alongside technological shift
According to informationweek.com, Baxter emphasizes that the technology transformation isn't just about systems and software—it's equally about people and culture. Changing how a 150-year-old company thinks about technology requires significant cultural shift, and the report suggests this has been one of the biggest challenges of the transformation process.
The company has had to develop new skills within its workforce, bringing in technology expertise while also retraining existing employees to work with new systems and processes. This dual approach—building new capabilities while evolving existing ones—has been crucial to making the transformation stick. Baxter describes it as creating a 'technology-first mindset' across the organization, not just within the IT department.
This cultural aspect of digital transformation is often underestimated, but in practice, it's frequently the difference between success and failure. Companies can invest in the latest technology, but if their people don't understand how to use it effectively or why it matters, the investment rarely pays off. ScottsMiracle-Gro appears to be taking a comprehensive approach that addresses both the technical and human dimensions of change.
Global Implications for Traditional Industries
What ScottsMiracle-Gro's transformation means for other established companies
The ScottsMiracle-Gro story matters beyond the lawn and garden industry because it demonstrates how even the most traditional, physical product-based companies can embrace digital transformation successfully. According to the report, their experience offers lessons for other companies in similar situations—businesses that might assume digital technology is primarily for tech companies or service businesses.
Internationally, we're seeing similar transformations across various traditional industries. Manufacturing companies are becoming technology companies that happen to make physical products. Retailers are becoming data companies that happen to operate stores. This pattern suggests we're in the middle of a broader industrial transformation where digital capabilities are becoming central to competitive advantage across virtually all sectors.
The scale of ScottsMiracle-Gro's operation—with products in major retailers across North America and manufacturing facilities serving global markets—means their transformation has significant ripple effects. Their suppliers, retail partners, and even competitors are all affected by these changes. As they develop new digital capabilities, they're effectively raising the bar for what customers should expect from lawn and garden companies, which will likely drive similar transformations across the industry.
Ethical Considerations in Agricultural Technology
Balancing innovation with responsibility in the digital garden
As with any technology transformation, particularly one involving consumer products and personal data, ethical considerations come into play. While the informationweek.com article doesn't delve deeply into these issues, they're worth considering in the broader context. The data-driven approach to gardening raises questions about privacy (what happens to all that information about people's yards and gardening habits?), accessibility (will these digital tools create advantages for those who can afford them while leaving others behind?), and environmental impact (are we creating dependency on technology for basic activities like growing food?).
Typically, companies undergoing digital transformations need to consider how their new capabilities affect various stakeholders—not just shareholders but customers, employees, and the communities they operate in. The lawn and garden industry has particular responsibilities around environmental stewardship, given that their products directly interact with natural ecosystems.
The move toward precision gardening could potentially reduce environmental impact by helping customers use exactly the right amount of products rather than over-applying, but it could also create new dependencies on technology and data services. These are the kinds of trade-offs that companies like ScottsMiracle-Gro must navigate as they become more technology-focused.
The Future of Growing Things
Where technology might take the lawn and garden industry next
Based on the direction described in the informationweek.com report, we can speculate about where this transformation might lead. The integration of digital technology with physical products suggests possibilities like smart gardening equipment that automatically adjusts based on soil conditions, subscription services that deliver exactly the right products at exactly the right time, or even augmented reality tools that help gardeners visualize how their spaces will look before they plant.
The historical context here is important—the lawn and garden industry has seen incremental innovations for decades, but the current digital transformation represents a fundamental shift in how the business operates. Previous milestones like the development of timed-release fertilizers or weed-prevention technologies were important, but they didn't change the underlying business model in the way that digital connectivity appears to be doing now.
Looking internationally, we can see similar trends in agricultural technology, particularly in regions facing water scarcity or other environmental challenges. The technologies being developed for consumer gardening often have parallels in commercial agriculture, and innovations in one area frequently spill over into the other. This cross-pollination between consumer and commercial applications is likely to accelerate the pace of innovation in both spaces.
Measuring Success in Digital Soil
How a company knows when technology transformation is working
According to the report, Baxter and his team are tracking multiple metrics to gauge the success of their digital transformation. These include traditional business metrics like efficiency improvements and cost reductions, but also newer measures related to customer engagement, data utilization, and innovation velocity. The multi-faceted nature of these metrics reflects the comprehensive approach they're taking—this isn't just about doing the same things cheaper, but about doing fundamentally different things that create new value.
In practice, successful digital transformations typically show results across several dimensions: operational efficiency, customer experience, employee capability, and innovation capacity. Companies that focus too narrowly on just one of these areas often struggle to sustain their transformation efforts over the long term.
The ScottsMiracle-Gro case, as reported by informationweek.com in 2025, offers a interesting example of how even companies in traditional, physical product industries can embrace digital technology to transform their operations and value proposition. Their experience suggests that the dividing line between 'tech companies' and 'everyone else' is becoming increasingly blurred—and that the seeds of technological change can take root in even the most unexpected places.
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