Landscape Management, April 2017

Contractors can easily double their capacity because they have something like Real Green to invoice follow up with clients sell over the phone and take notes with that Ricci says Its something specific to our industry and does a really good job While software continues to improve and meet ever changing needs it isnt enough on its own Owners need to have a solid business plan and foundation in place to make the most of it he adds If youre losing money no program or app will help you Ricci says You need to change your mindset and business Combining Software SolutionS When it comes to finding the right software for a largescale green industry business Mike Bogan CEO of LandCare formerly TruGreen LandCare doesnt rely on just one to meet its needs LandCare is a 160 million landscape maintenance company serving commercial properties through 50 branches in 18 states LandCare uses three separate software programs While researching platforms we found that there was no single solution that was built to optimally serve our needs Bogan says The systems that focus on providing general finance human resources and CRM capabilities were not flexible enough to meet our landscape management needs So they focused on finding ones that had the ability to propose plan and execute work efficiently serve multiple branches combine financial data and reports into branch region division and company subgroups pay employees across multiple tax and wage jurisdictions and plan and organize landscape operations in diverse climate zones That led LandCare to choose Aspire to handle its operations and client service needs Aspire was able to provide each of the components we required estimating proposal generation and submittal mobile time entry purchase order tracking job costing and job cost analysis while allowing us to combine or break down the data in as many ways as we could conceive Bogan says The company also uses NetSuite for accounting and financial reporting and UltiPro for human resource tracking and facilitation Each are well suited for our companys particular needs in these areas he says Incorporating these programs has helped improve their estimates update material prices and labor rates to ensure appropriate renewal pricing compare actual to estimated job costs to identify estimating or productivity deficiencies and analyze performance of groups of jobs by client market segment geography supervisor or production leader Data and information organized and delivered effectively help our leaders make better decisions to drive quality and service to our clients Bogan says The span of control of a manager measured in number of clients crews or amount of revenue increases as software brings improved access to realtime information and the ability to drive performance with quicker more impactful decisions His advice to other companies is to dedicate the personnel time and financial resources to implement and lead the software program which will change their businesses Purchasing software is the easy part Bogan says Leading your team through change and empowering the implementation team is what determines the amount of value you will get from the software Selecting the right software is an important starting point but the implementation team and training efforts are what bring it to life in a powerful way Dowdle is a freelance writer based in Nashville April 2017 LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET SG5 Photo istock com tatomm asPiRE LandCare relies on several software programs including Aspire