Landscape Management, November 2016

which the company made do without until it could buy new ones but the meat and potatoes of the companys production capabilities remained By the end of the week Scotts was fully operational We could still do the work Burk says We had our tools We had our trucks Our guys knew what to do We just didnt have an office or a shop If anything that was the part of this story that was lucky We didnt plan that Not everyone who experiences a disaster is that lucky says Teel While he didnt work with Burk he works with many companies before and after disasters Teel says Burk quickly responded to two vital post disaster questions What are my critical business functions and How do I protect the biggest sources of revenue By salvaging equipment and sending crews out immediately he was able to cater to his most valuable accounts Some companies affected by disaster take massive equipment losses that arent easily replaced Think about out how you would replace the equipment you use on a daily basis Teel says Talk to your equipment vendors and discuss the hypothetical situation Find out if they have the ability to deliver new or used equipment in a moments notice In some cases they might not know and it could spark a similar conversation between the dealer and the manufacturer Teel suggests putting a plan in place with your dealer to set up a shortterm 48 LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET November 2016 lease agreement should disaster strike It also helps to develop formal relationships with a rental company to replace incidentals quickly Another strategy is to lean on nearby landscape companies maybe fellow members of state or regional associations you belong to or even a rival company to hire as a subcontractor or to borrow equipment from To place a customer in the hands of a competitor may go against a business owners competitive nature but serving clients should be your main priority You cant just call your customers and say Hey guys sorry we cant be there for a couple months Teel says The bottom line is you have to find a way to keep on keepin on Within two weeks of the fire at Scotts news reports spread through the community and the state Businesses across Pennsylvania including competitors reached out to the company to offer support Since Scotts Landscapings biggest woes were in the office not in the field the company didnt accept much help But that doesnt mean Burk didnt appreciate the offers It was kind of humbling to see fellow landscapers say Hey can we loan you equipment or help you with projects says Burk On Friday we were all competitors hopefully friendly but we were competing for jobs Then this happens and theyre saying What can we do to help and support you Back it up If youre not backing up your files and hard drives stop reading this article now and go do it Its vital to survival stresses melany Tapia owner of Tapia Technology Consulting IT support is vital to any business with more than a few computers but even companies with one or two are better off safe than sorry she says Unlike a chemical applicator or irrigation professional IT specialists are not required to have a license so do your homework by talking to some of a prospective hires other clients but for those of us who cant take good advice here are a few things you can do to make sure youre protected Cloud based backup online could based services charge monthly and perform nightly system backups saving your files and data to the cloud These are good options but Tapia says the backbones of the networks often arent fast enough to do an online backup If you have a fiber optic internet connection an online backup is probably oK but if youre using a DSL modem for example youre connection isnt strong enough to back up everything you have External hard drives An external drive is your other option buy two external hard drives the same size or bigger than the hard drive youre attempting to back up Swap them out once a week and keep one offsite Services like Windows backup and restore will help you run a total backup of your hard drive Vital information If youre using an online backup on a poor internet connection focus on backing up vital information such as Quickbooks or other financial data and purchase an external hard drive to back up everything else Remember to test No matter what youre using its important to run tests Tapia has worked with companies that had backup systems in place only to realize once a test was run that something had gone wrong and the system hadnt backed up anything for years Attempt to recover a file from whatever backup system youre using at least once a month to test the system