The digital divide

On any given day, Kurt Bland, president and CEO of Bland Landscaping Company in Apex, N.C., might use his iPhone to conduct training or troubleshoot job site problems remotely via FaceTime, create a CAD document or upload files to Dropbox, in addition to sending the usual assortment of email and text messages – all while in the field.

“I could do my job pretty much just on the iPhone,” Bland says.

He isn’t the only person in his company who regularly relies on an iPhone either. Last June, the company purchased about 100 mobile devices for managers, salespeople, foremen and supervisors. “In my opinion, it’s a can’t-live-without tool. I can’t imagine trying to do business today at the pace that we function as an organization without having the iPhone,” Bland says.

Increasingly, landscape contractors are discovering the benefits of ditching paper in favor of mobile devices. Whether you’ve already made the switch or are still contemplating going mobile, you can learn from these savvy contractors who have embraced the power of the cell phone, tablet and laptop to streamline day-to-day operations.
 

Reap the rewards.

Callahan’s Lawn Care & Property Maintenance in Rochester, N.Y., started using mobile devices in the field about three years ago.

“Once the technology was available for the software we were using in the office, we switched over,” says owner Mike Callahan.

Now the company has web-enabled laptops in two estimating vehicles and tablets in seven service vehicles. All of the devices remotely access the company’s service business software, Service Autopilot.

Callahan, whose $1 million-a-year, full-service commercial company employs about 15 people in season, can now easily bill customers, communicate with employees in the field and even check production rates and drive time. Employees use the tablets for a variety of purposes beyond texting, email and searching the Internet.

For instance, if they’re lost en route to a job site, the tablet’s GPS capability helps them reach their destination. And if they have questions – from the address of the closest mechanic to a shopping list of things to buy when it’s time to winterize equipment – they can log onto the company wiki and find out most of what they need to know. The wiki even includes YouTube training videos.

“It’s almost like our own company Google search bar,” Callahan says. “We keep pumping information into the wiki each day to help make everyone in the company more reliant on themselves rather than having to constantly call managers.”

As a result, he now gets only three to four calls per day from employees in the field, as opposed to an average of 30-40 calls per day before implementing the mobile devices and wiki.

“It has also allowed us to streamline the flow of information to the office and to quickly update schedules,” Callahan says.

“If someone calls in the middle of the day to add a job, we can upload the job complete with any specific directions, budgeted man hours and rates to the guys in the field and it instantaneously modifies their route in the sequential order they should do work in.”

In addition, the GPS-enabled tablets record when employees arrive at and depart from a property. “It’s great for billing because we know who was at a job and how long it took. Now our job costing is 100 percent accurate,” Callahan says.

This functionality also helps avoiding winter slip-and-fall litigation, Callahan says, because if the company salts a parking lot and someone later falls and claims the lot was icy, the company can prove when they were there to salt.

Callahan regularly relies on his in-truck laptop, too. With it, he can email estimates to customers before he even leaves their properties. “I’ve been able to pump out 30 to 35 estimates every day without going back to the office to log it all,” he says.

The increased efficiency afforded by these devices has allowed Callahan’s company to add 35 billable man-hours per week without adding an extra employee or piece of equipment. “Our profits almost doubled in 12 months after implementing the system,” he says. “It was insane.”

Rick Longnecker, owner of Buds & Blades Landscape Co., a $350,000-a-year residential maintenance firm, in Olympia, Wash., has been using an iPhone for daily business for the past four years. He started relying on an iPad for presentations and preparing proposals and estimates within the last year.

He regularly uses a variety of apps for increased productivity. For instance, he uses Hindsite field service software for work orders and routing, Joist for proposals, MailBox for email management, Wheel It Off to measure job sites, and even iTranslate to convert messages from English to Spanish to text crewmembers who aren’t native English speakers.

In addition, beginning about seven months ago, Longnecker’s crews began using Samsung Galaxy tablets for conducting business and as GPS navigational tools. The company started using the tablets to more accurately track time, get away from paper and double-entry record-keeping, and provide employees with details on getting to a job site without relying on paper route sheets and a GPS device.

“It seemed like a good fit to kill two or three birds with one stone,” Longnecker says. And the switch has been well worth it.

“We’re getting more accurate time information from the field and we’re able to see in real-time where the crews are, so if we need to communicate something to them or reroute them for the day, we have a little bit better idea what’s going on.”
 

Plan for the switch.

The transition from paper to mobile doesn’t happen overnight. Initially, Callahan’s company used hard copy records as a backup until everyone felt comfortable with the technology.

However, given that younger employees were already adept at using personal mobile devices, within a couple of days the entire company was up and running. “It was really intuitive,” Callahan says.

Callahan recommends making certain whatever mobile devices you plan to use are compatible with your business software first. “Get feedback and make sure whatever solution you’re using is actually going to work the way they say it is,” he says. “Some software that isn’t cloud-based has major hiccups.”

Longnecker also says that researching software companies is key before investing in mobile devices. “I think all the hardware for the most part works fairly well, it just depends on what you want to spend and what you want to use,” Longnecker says. “Find the software company that’s going to give you what you need and who can back it up to you with good service and product support.”

If your devices rely on cellular service, it’s important to find a carrier with a plan that best suits your company.

“It’s not a cheap conversion,” Callahan says. “But the cost pays for itself almost immediately.” The tablets Callahan went with run $250-$350 each, plus $150-$200 per truck for mounting hardware and $25-$30 for user rights to the company’s business management software. He’s budgeting for replacements every three years, though he hopes that investing in quality protective cases will help stretch that lifespan.

When Buds & Blades went mobile, Longnecker set up the system on Oct.1, and on approximately Oct. 20, crews received tablets and crew leaders spent half of the day training crews. “I planned to roll it out in the fall and have the kinks worked out during the winter so we could hit the spring season ready to go,” Longnecker says.

But things actually went faster than expected and on Nov. 1, the company decided to go paper-free and has been devoted to the new system since then.
 

Avoid problems.

Sometimes the unexpected happens. Last year six of Callahan’s seven trucks were broken into and the tablets – which were bolted to the dashboards – were ripped out and stolen. “That’s one of the downfalls of having something like that in the truck,” Callahan says. “If it’s a web-based device, the person could potentially have access to your data.”

Fortunately, the company has the ability to wipe all tablets and laptops remotely as soon as they are compromised. “The major thing we learned from that is how important it is to have a good password on all of the devices so it would take them a while to crack the password to give us time to wipe it remotely,” Callahan says.

Data usage can also be problematic. “We’ve got to closely monitor how data is being consumed,” Bland says. “With close to 100 phones in the field, we can run up tremendous bills for data usage, so it’s important to implement internal controls and policies so employees don’t abuse that.”

Bland, whose full-service, mostly commercial firm has annual revenue around $15 million, stresses the importance of assigning devices once they arrive.

Bland allows employees to use the phones for personal use, and so he bought a plan with no limits on calls or texts. Power users can run up big bills, so he keeps tabs with detailed statements. And all employees are accountable for the hardware – they sign a contract that makes them responsible for replacing a lost device.

“When we assign a phone to somebody, we make them financially responsible for that phone,” he says. “If they break it while at work as part of their job, I repair it. But if they lose it, they’re paying for it.

“Damage to properly encased iPhones has been so minimal that we have learned to live with the rare instance, but loss is entirely preventable. Therefore we make employees cover the expense. This has only happened twice that I know of.”

Although Longnecker says the devices his company uses help save administrative time, there are still occasions when something doesn’t upload correctly because of a lost connection or when someone has to get into the system to fix incorrect information. “It’s only as good as the information put in, but those errors have been minimized,” he says. “We’re getting more accurate information and saving time in the office.”

Despite the upfront cost and occasional challenges that come along with implementing mobile devices, all three contractors agree that going mobile is worth it.

“This is the way of the future,” Callahan says. “If you’re not going to embrace it, you’re going to be left in the dust.”

The author is a freelance writer based in Lincoln, Ill.

ROI on your IT

By Dan Gordon

Mobile technology can increase efficiency, but how do you know if the investment is really worth it for your company?

I suggest the return on investment model. Among others, ROI can be measured in terms of revenue increased, costs reduced and time saved. To calculate ROI, the benefit of an investment (the gain minus the cost) is divided by the cost of the investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio:
 

ROI calculations can become complex. This is where careful analysis of the facts and projections come into play. Let’s look at an investment in technology: the purchase mobile device hardware and software setup for your crews and office staff. Here are our assumptions:

• Purchase price: $20,000, totally financed by the bank
• Financing: interest-only payments at 6 percent annual, paid monthly
• Insurance: $1,100 per year
• Cost savings: $500 per day in labor and office costs
• Depreciation: Seven-year property straight line
• Combined federal and state tax rate: 40 percent
• Net profit: 15 percent
• Other assumptions: no inflation, no tax rate changes and zero maintenance costs.

So, according to my calculations (in the chart below), the annual return from this $20,000 investment in mobile hardware is $11, 463 – more than 57 percent per year, and more than 300 percent during the lifetime of the equipment. Seems like a no brainer, right?

Not quite. We’ve calculated the tangible financial costs and benefits. But there are intangible benefits that must be considered. These include working fewer hours at the office and spend more time with your family, less stress on your staff.

Employee satisfaction and stress reduction are even more difficult to quantify. But the questions don’t stop there. What if the investment gave a negative ROI in terms of cash, but it saved a lot of stress for your crews and office manager? And what if the technology ends up being a distraction to your production teams?

These are decisions that you as the owner must make. The analysis can be subjective, and may call for the inclusion of staff to help examine.

As we move to the future, investment in technology is necessary. But investing in it for investment sake alone is not a prudent strategy. Careful collection of all tangible and intangible costs and benefits must be laid out and a determination made if the benefits truly outweigh the costs.

The author is a New Jersey-based CPA. He runs Turfbooks, an accounting firm that serves landscapers. Email him at dgordon@giemedia.com.