Technology timeline

The fifth annual Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference capped off with a first-of-its-kind panel featuring six pioneers of green industry software. During the session, panelists discussed their motivations for building and implementing software into their landscaping companies, the current state of technology within the industry and the role AI is playing and where they see the industry heading in terms of technology use for the years ahead.

Panelists giving their past, present and future insights included: Mark Bradley, cofounder of LMN; Mike Cossins, founder/president of The Integra Group/ Boss Software; Joe Kucik, founder of Real Green Systems; Mike Rorie, former CEO of GIS Dynamics; Bill Seven, founder and CEO of Include Software; and Mark Tipton, Founder/CEO of Aspire Software.

The past:

According to Bradley, LMN came out of necessity as he needed a way to grow his own landscaping company.

“I was finding it incredibly hard to scale it efficiently,” Bradley says. “There wasn’t anything on the market, so I decided to build something — that was in 2007… by 2009 we decided to start selling it to others.”

Seven agrees and recalls more and more companies were looking for a way to take their company to the next level. But, they all had different needs and different ways of doing things so the challenge with developing and selling industry software really became uniformity.

“One of the things I’ve learned about landscaping companies is there isn’t just one way to do something and people didn’t want to migrate what they were doing to something new,” Seven says. “It became ever-more clear though that the path to happiness included full integration of everything”

But despite each company having their own approaches, Kucik adds the industry has always been willing to work together, share strengths and weaknesses and collaborate — something that’s not only continued to this day but helped shape industry software.

“I’ve never been around an industry that’s so collaborative,” Kucik says. “There’s no selfishness.”

Cossins remembers having to work extra hard in the early days to get companies to see the worth in implementing software.

“When we started in the industry, we had to convince people in the industry that technology was worth it, had value and had an ROI,” Cossins says. “It seems like now, everybody knows that they should get on some kind of business management software and lean on technology…if they’re not on it they feel like they should be and if they are on it, they want to press the gas pedal a little more.”

Rorie concurs — adding there is no effective way for a company to track its performance today without software.

“It was really hard to get people to trust that 14 years ago,” Rorie admits. “Today… you need to be able to see the business…if you can’t see the business — you really can’t ever influence the business.

Bradley likens what he and the other software innovators were trying to do with technology within the industry to what global tech companies were trying to do with cellphones back in the day.

“15 years ago, these devices were just coming to market,” he notes. “Ultimately, what we’re trying to do as software companies is help people avoid some of the day-to-day pains in their lives — much like cellphones have.”

The present:

Tipton shares that while the technology behind industry software has come a long way over the past few decades, it’s still advancing rapidly.

“There’s been a lot of significant investment just in the last year or two,” Tipton says. “The progress the landscape industry has made is tremendous.”

In terms of technology use, Tipton says he doesn’t believe the green industry is winning the race, but it’s no longer the industry in last place either. He adds that the electrical and HVAC industries are still a good two or three years ahead of the green industry.

Bradley adds, “When the devices first started coming out, we were in infancy stage — now we’re probably in the teenage stage. We’re confident but ignorant. We’ve got the technology but we’re not really sure how to put it all in one place and utilize it in the most efficient way possible. That’s the big challenge in front of us.”

AI is just one technology aiming to easily alleviate customer and employee pain points without investing a lot of time or effort. All the panelists weighed in on how they feel AI will influence the green industry.

“We have AI in numerous applications today,” Tipton says. “There’s still huge opportunities that aren’t fully being taken advantage of yet where I think AI will really be automating all those monotonous tasks people spend so much time on.”

Bradley says he feels AI is most beneficial in helping free up valuable time for employees.

“I think the ultimate focus needs to be on creating a better life for people in the industry by utilizing AI, by taking away the work we really don’t like doing and that doesn’t necessarily create customer value,” he says.

He adds that by embracing AI and automations, companies should be able to compensate their staff members

Cossins says he expects AI to revolutionize things and equates it to being the next big technology like when the internet debuted or the iPhone.

“It is a real gamechanger,” Cossins says. “If you knew everything about AI last week, you wouldn’t know everything about AI this week — that’s powerful.”

Because of how quickly AI is advancing, Kucik notes he does have some reservations about its place in the industry and the world.

“When it comes to AI, I have a certain amount of fear,” he admits. “I think we’re going to need AI to protect us from AI… it’s a little bit scary. I think we may have an explosion of corruption from using the tool.”

Seven says AI may cause existing industry software to revamp their designs, and it will certainly impact future developments.

Seven adds he expects AI to become so mainstream someday that people won’t be as impressed by it.

“AI will eventually become monetized kind of like how electricity is,” he says. “You go to the wall and flip a switch and it comes on but there’s so much technology behind the light coming on that we just take it for granted.”

The future:

In terms of where they see technology playing a role in the green industry’s future, all the panelists say the industry will only become more reliant on it over time.

How fast this happens though is up for debate.

Kucik says he doesn't anticipate any big waves of usage happening any time soon.

“I don’t see it changing our industry overnight — I think it’ll be a long-term thing,” he says.

Tipton rather sees a speed up in the industry’s future.

“I think the pace at which it happens is going to increase significantly,” he notes. “It’s not going to slow down. I don’t think it’ll radically change the world for landscaper, but it will enhance it.”

Rorie says with the ongoing labor struggles the industry is facing, software and automations will become a useful way to get more done with less.

“I think we have less people in the offices today because of technology,” Rorie says. “Technology can make your people more efficient. People are the problem — there’s not enough of them and it’s hard work — anything that offsets that is going to be a big winner.”

Bradley has similar sentiments but adds that technology should be used to enhance an employee’s workday — not necessarily replace human staff.

“What we’re going to see over the next few years is a heavy focus on making the industry a better place to work,” Bradley says. “When we use the technology to allow people to be more productive and utilize their creative side, we’ll really start to see the workforce change. I think we’ll see a workforce that’s welcoming of this technology if it’s easy enough to use.”

The author is an associate editor with Lawn & Landscape.