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Articles
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THE NEW AGE OF LANDSCAPING
New advances in landscaping have made this essential part of retail maintenance easier to manage
Kevin Dent
The Grass Is Always Greener
Everyone wants the greenest grass, meticulous planting beds, extravagant water features
and a landscape maintenance program that addresses the needs of every season. However,
the dilemma of budget constraints, day-to-day tasks and general job duties do not afford
the national or regional store/facility manager the time to deal with all the demands of
various vertical market contractors. In this article, we will discuss a brief history of
retail landscaping, the milestones that prepared us for drastic changes and the cutting
edge landscape management tools that allow fluid and seamless service without diverting
valuable resources from your core focus.
The Old Landscape
After servicing the landscape industry for over 25 years, I can attest that the methods
and philosophy of landscape maintenance have changed drastically. In actuality, there
never was a philosophy to the whole concept, just a lot of hard work and repetition.
In the '70s and '80s, most commercial and retail corporations would permit local managers
to handle facility management and purchasing duties for individual property or retail
locations. The manager would contact and develop local relationships with various
independent contractors providing everything from landscaping to plumbing. The manager
would then develop a friendly relationship with the contractor and, as long as the work
was satisfactory, the contractor would continue providing the service.
A significant disadvantage to this setup was the fact that the local landscaper was
probably a good landscaper but a poor businessperson. So, the contractor and manager
rarely entered into a true business relationship that addressed topics like exterior
asset inventories, liability insurance and quality assurance. It is important to note
that this was primarily due to lack of technology and industry research. At the store
or facility management strata, the onsite manager had all of the control when preparing
specifications and, far too often, needs were not addressed, prices became inflated,
exterior inventories were random or undocumented and, most importantly, liability and
coverage was inadequate or non-existent.
Today's Landscape
The landscape of retail America has grown in leaps and bounds over the past few decades.
A significant factor for this growth is the development and implementation of software
applications, Web-enabled management tools and aggressive mergers and acquisitions.
However, let's take a moment to acknowledge the backbone of the industry - the local
and regional landscape contractors that have painstakingly designed and maintained
the environmental brand of our largest retail chains from very humble beginnings. Some
relationships and friendships have grown with these corporations, but many have fallen
by the wayside because of a top-down management push and the inability to compete on a
pure business level. In actuality, whether you manage 5,000 stores or 50 facilities, you
expect local or regional landscape contractors to facilitate on a business level and to
understand your pressure points of corporate growth, not just have landscaping knowledge.
Over the years, many of these local and regional relationships between facility managers
and contractors remain intact and friendships have grown along with industry talents. In
1996, a new brand platform referred to as Exterior Services Management or ESM, infiltrated
the market and offered a single source solution that services the relationship with the
business entity. This form of management makes landscaping the end product. So, in essence,
the business relationship that didn't exist in the '70s and '80s is now a driving force
and primary concern to facilitate seamless and custom landscape management.
This management-based brand also protects and retains an average of 75% of the manager's
current local contractors. So, a national management replacement program will not hurt the
friendship and trust of a valued contractor. ESM brand also avoids the old-fashioned bid
program by offering the first geographic costing grid for the continental United States.
All retail and facility management can benefit from this formula that reduces overall
spending on all exterior landscaping services. The ESM companies have spent years researching
weather patterns, population density, transportation statistics and other environmental data
to formulate efficient costing zones in nine U.S. regions for literally thousands of
landscape contractors.
New Age Contracting
The entire landscaping industry began to see a drastic change in the exterior facility
management industry during early 1990s. Corporations, as opposed to local and regional
management, began to centralize operations and services. This was mainly due to changes
in the economy, new technology advancements, ever-changing budget constraints and new
methods of store and facility accountability. Internet and hardware advancements have
delivered automated accounting software, Web-enabled portfolio management, digital cameras
and a way to "big brother" your entire system for quality assurance.
Although most companies utilize some of these advancements, they still do not effectively
lower costs and cut budgets according to a plan. Unlike the 1980s, there are now fewer
corporations that permit regional managers to handle facility management and purchasing
duties. There is no single source approach to invoicing or a way to set quality assurance
standards for literally hundreds of properties. These services are, for the most part,
contracted locally and billed nationally. This dilemma can create a snowstorm of invoices
and problems monitoring regional and national quality assurance. The ESM platform can
provide service standardization and cost containment for all your landscaping needs,
thereby eliminating the shortfalls and inadequacies mentioned above.
Safety & Legal Issues Involve Green
With all retail landscaping management, we expect problems controlling liability issues
and enhancing loss prevention policies. A national retail chain that does not utilize an
ESM platform for landscape management could be responsible for literally hundreds of
liability cases in various regions, dealing with hundreds of law firms and hundreds of
settlement cases. With the ESM managing the national or regional landscaping for stores
or facilities, there is one large liability policy, one entity and one legal firm. The
contractors are all managed by this entity and the ESM takes on all the responsibility.
Landscape Specifications
If you are involved with new landscape construction or master planning for the upcoming year,
national ESMs are an excellent resource for writing detailed landscaping specifications that
won't end up wasting resources and budgetary allotments that could be used elsewhere.
Now the specifications are written in-house, but far too often the underwriter is not
familiar with current methods of accomplishing exterior tasks. Even in today's market,
an internal procurement department is tasked with finding an internal landscaping expert
in the corporation. This internal expert is expected to advise a vice president in charge
of facilities to draft specifications for a national format. Today, an ESM can even provide
landscape specifications for a national proposal by a simple measurement of square footage
and end up saving not only the company's budget, but quite possibly a few jobs along the way.
If your retail stores or facilities are experiencing quality assurance issues, too many liabilities
cases or simply have trouble completing landscaping specifications for national formats, you might
want to consider calling a national ESM company to discuss a management program that could keep
your current landscaping partner on the job, reduce your exterior spend, eliminate the worries
of liability and provide fluid service to the exterior.
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