Solar Spotlight: K2 invests in software solutions to simplify solar design and sales

K2 Systems is a racking company that manufactures installation-friendly solar mounting systems tailored to the needs of customers. Recent investments in more robust software solutions add to that mission of helping installers do their jobs quicker and easier. Andy Neshat, CEO of K2 Systems US & MX, joins Solar Power World in this podcast to talk about the new K2 Quote solution and the company’s plans to further cut soft costs.

Below is an excerpt of K2’s Solar Spotlight podcast, but be sure to listen to the full episode here or on your favorite podcast app.

Can you start off by giving us an overview of what K2 is doing globally this year?

Andy Neshat: K2 has been doing the same thing for the last 20 years and we continue to expand in the existing markets we serve. We’ve been providing primarily rooftop racking systems throughout the world, and some ground-mount systems since 2020.

We’re working throughout Europe, parts of Asia, South Africa, England, Australia and throughout North America, which is the market K2 US and MX covers. We continue to grow and we continue to open up new regions of the world where we see a need for our products and services.

How does K2 stay up to date with software services in the solar industry?

We’ve been providing digital tools for our customers primarily so that they can design and engineer our systems.  We’ve invested in two primary platforms — K2 Base, which is a global tool, and more recently, K2 Quote, which is a simpler tool for quick BOM generation and general engineering data.

We’ve also started to invest heavily into integration with the entire solar software ecosystem — design tools, sales tools, permitting tools and things like that, so that our customers, both our partners and solar contractors, can easily design, configure and create Bills of Materials and get the engineering data they need to do their job. That’s the fundamental goal — to make it as easy as possible for people to design and use our systems throughout the world.

What differentiates K2 systems from other racking manufacturers?

I think primarily it’s our people and our culture. We’ve been an international company for a very long time. We have a very market-driven approach. Instead of being one centralized company doing the same thing throughout the world, every market we go to, we adapt. And I think the most important thing that we do really well is that we’re laser-focused and attentive to our customers and our partners. We actually listen really well, then we take that back and we act and then we deliver on it, be it products, services, logistics or whatever the need is for those customers. We embed that into our culture throughout the world. And we’ve been successful in many, many countries, not by being centralized but being more distributed and closer to the customer. I think that helps us differentiate ourselves both with products and services.

This podcast is sponsored by K2