Brave New Worlds – Landscape Industry Trends

“To start with, it’s worth noting that all the insanity around us notwithstanding there will be a moment when this age will start to make sense: That courageous new world will look very different than it does now…”
-Joshua Cooper Ramo, author of The Age of the Unthinkable

It’s the Nation
Yes, the nation is in disaster. One large U.S. investment bank has disappeared while the remaining four have been bought or become conventional banks. As of the end of 2009 one hundred forty banks have closed. In 2010, twenty-seven banks have closed through March 11th. The Wall Street Journal reports that the FDIC expects the bank closure rate to increase this year. The New York Times reports that beyond the $700 billion TARP bailout, the government has committed to spend about $12.2 trillion to prop up the flaccid nation. The residential housing market has collapsed and the commercial material goods market is on the brink of disaster.

What does this mean to our industry? In interviews with contractors, suppliers and manufacturers across the people, the by and large U.S. landscape industry declined between 25% to 30% in 2008. Keeping at the current pace, it appears that the landscape industry has declined an additional 30% in 2009. By and large, this ellipsis to our market over the last twenty-six months is between 40% to 50%. The West Coast and East Coast have been hit the toughest. The Midwest, with the exclusion of Michigan, is experiencing the least amount of decline. Even in areas with lesser amounts of decline, such as New England, the pain is still bestow.

In Texas, the Midwest, and New England, companies all ears on the residential market felt the pinch early last year. This year, companies all ears on the commercial market are feeling the economic crunch. By and large, in the last eighteen months, the landscape market in Texas is down 30%. While not as terrible as California or Florida the decline is still frightening.

The only bright spot is commercial maintenance and mowing contractors. Dan Diehl, with Consumer Administrator for Kenney Equipment says, “With the unusually wet weather over the last two years, the commercial mowing market has stayed about the same. Though, everyone is being very alert and prices have dropped as companies struggle to stay in affair.”

Struggle
In the small term, struggle is fierce as competitors drop prices. Margins are being squeezed. Surviving companies will be lean and exceptionally efficient. Can companies reinvent themselves in a down market? The list of companies that have started in down economies is legendary. Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Dell Computers are all companies that started in down economies. Reinvention is doable. In the 1950’s AT&T reinvented their telephone arrangement. Businesses today have a unique chance to rethink how they conduct affair. The smart companies are doing this. They have changed. Smart companies are long-suffering the economic chaos and are seeking hidden opportunities.

Survival – The companies that carry on will have these attributes:

1. Adaptability
Companies that are incredibly quick and open will carry on this crisis. “In nature, it is not survival of the strongest or the smartest of the species but the species that is the most adaptable to change,” said Charles Darwin. Adaptability also speaks to the need to be incredible efficient. Companies across the nation are reducing costs at an alarming rate. Those companies, which know most successfully where to reduce expenses lacking reducing essential services will prosper.

2. Fantastic Customer Benefit
Fantastic customer benefit never goes out of make. Take care of your existing customers while your struggle offers panic driven discounts. Know your customers. Talk to your customers. Fantastic customer benefit is all about communication.

Fantastic customer benefit also means fantastic quality. The value proposition of your company depends upon delivering what a customer wants. It also depends on delivering it when your customer wants it. Finally, delivering all this at a value a customer expects is what separates you in the market. Quality has never been more valuable.

3. Courage
Fantastic leaders know tough times make chance to drive change and innovation. Historically, the companies that invest in marketing and sale fare best in economic downturns. Increasing sales and marketing expenses when your company is slashing all feels counteract intuitive. It takes courage. Your struggle is cutting expenses in sales and marketing making your marketing efforts even more lucrative. Your marketing will project. How do you converse with potential customers lacking marketing and sales?

4. Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership requires the courage to hold a vision and an inspiration that people can follow. Transformational leadership is driven by sustainability and not simple efficiency. Decisions are open and transparent. Transformative leaders use consultation and partaking as a administer to make change. The change required is not in what we do as a affair. The change is about how we do affair. Transformative leaders empower people.

Address the Environment
In the landscape industry, green was simply what we called our industry. Twenty years later, green is the one of the hottest growing trends in the world. Faith Popcorn, of the BrainReserve, places this in terms of Save Our Society (SOS). It is a growing trend towards social dependability. People buy brands that help society. People want to work for companies that help society. People are willing to commit a certain amount of time to help society.

Environmental issues have dramatically changed from conserving precious natural assets into making a sustainable environment. We in the landscape industry can play an valuable role. Conversely, if we do not play an valuable role, the environmental issues will dramatically change our industry. In 2007, seventeen Canadian communities banned commercial lawn care applicators and in 2008 a further 124 followed suit.

We often reckon water conservation is reserved for the arid West. In the late 1980’s we saw the advent of low-flush toilets and low-flow showerheads. In Massachusetts today, most area communities impose water restrictions to meet the 2004 state standard background the maximum per-person usage rate at 65 gallons per day. Massachusetts also adopted the first low-flush toilet law. With the average U.S. household water usage at 78 gallons per person per day this regulation has the potential to place the Massachusetts landscape industry out of affair.

What is our role? Through landscapes, we make sustainable sites. Several organizations have identified “green” industries as the number one growth industry.

Simply plant trees. The EPA reports that tree planting sequesters carbon and enhances the quality of soil, water, air and wildlife. If every family planted just one tree, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be reduced by one billion pounds annually. One tree will absorb about 10 lbs. of air pollutants, counting 4 lbs. of ozone. Trees planted around a home can reduce air conditioning usage by 30%. Over a 50-year time, a tree generates $31,250 worth of oxygen, provides $62,000 worth of air pollution hegemony, recycles $37,500 worth of water, and reins $31,250 worth of soil erosion.

Vegetative roof surfaces, or greenroofs, are an additional chance. Greenroofs are growing at a rate of 35% this year. Greenroofs increase stormwater retention, save energy, and reduce noise levels in a building. Environmentally greenroofs mitigate the urban heat island effect, reduce dust and smog, produce oxygen and act as a carbon dioxide sink. Financially, greenroofs increase the life expectancy of the roof, say to LEED points, and may be eligible for government incentives.

Rain gardens, bioswales, and precipitation harvesting technologies provide additional “green” opportunities. Rain Gardens are water-retaining areas planted with native or low-maintenance vegetation. A by the book constructed rain garden allows precipitation to runoff from impervious surfaces like rooftops, driveways, and sidewalks. This reduces stormwater runoff – allowing captured precipitation to soak into the soil instead of running into storm drains. Rain gardens can reduce non-point source pollution running into local streams and waterways. Rain gardens increase water quality, aid in flood hegemony, and encourage wildlife.

Bioswales, similar to rain gardens, have an additional constituent of a subsurface under drain – usually a corrugated pipe that feeds into the stormwater system. A landscape with by the book calculated rain gardens is cost effective when they eliminate the need to construct curbs, gutters, storm drains and retention ponds.

Precipitation harvesting system is an ancient thought seeing an augmented interest in the U.S. as an every second water supply. The City of Tucson, Arizona recently passed the first commercial precipitation harvesting requiring new commercial development to obtain 50% of their landscape water requirement from precipitation harvesting.

Currently, precipitation harvesting is seen as a method to conserve the amount of water used in a landscape, though, stormwater lessening is the chief benefit from precipitation harvesting. Like rain gardens and bioswales, precipitation harvesting takes the landscape from an aesthetic to a functional aspect. Rising a functional landscape essential for sustainable site development.

“The over-borrowing, over-consuming, and under-innovation is now in the US…” Antonio van Aqtmael said in an October 2007 issue of Newsweek. Every establishment has the power and the talent when unleashed, will result in dramatic change. In order to make success, drive up your mental resolve, keep a clear attitude, and drive dread out of your establishment. The best way to work with change is to make it.

Tom Barrett is an accomplished corporate growth and change agent with over thirty years encounter with the landscape industry. Tom’s leadership encounter, land executive level positions, drives corporate revenue growth through change and innovation for affair start-up’s, corporate expansions, and divisional turnarounds. Tom has been delivering dynamic presentations and schooling for over twenty years. These presentations empower people to become masters of change rather than victims of circumstance by rising tools for transformative thinking.

Tom can be reached at JT Barrett Enterprises, Inc., 317-219-3489 or tom.barrett@jtbarrett.com

Author: Tom Barrett
Condition Source: EzineArticles.com
Canada duty tariff