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Cover Story: 2009 State of the Industry
1 Jun, 2009 By: Landscape Management Staff Landscape Management
Gauge your performance
Even finely tuned companies are taking a beating in this off-road economy. Information is the key to navigating this rough terrain and finding your way back onto the fast track.
BY DANIEL G. JACOBS MANAGING EDITOR
The economy has slammed on the brakes. The navigation system's down and there's a strange noise coming from the engine. Like the drivers of an aging vehicle, Green Industry business owners study their dashboards trying to gauge the health of their operations — hoping not to end up in a ditch in need of a tow and a good body shop or, worse yet, having to walk away and sell everything as scrap.
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Good information is essential to gauging the state of your business. We surveyed more than 680 of your peers, crunched and interpreted the numbers, and present the results here. Some of the data reminds us of the gentle hum of a well-tuned engine — while other bits are more reminiscent of the black-smoke-spewing, oil-leaking junker just ahead on the side of the road.
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Of course, you don't need a tachometer to tell you how your business is doing. Some markets have been hit harder than others. Some company offerings have held up pretty well, while others have seen a need for their services dry up like a puddle in the Southwestern sun. But perspective does help. Even if it offers nothing more than the chance to commiserate with your fellow executives on the sorry state of the economy and its affect on your businesses (and that is by no means the case for all of you), having a benchmark with which to measure your operation against allows you to step back, take a deep breath and evaluate the situation. And it might just make it a bit easier to pass that guy in the slow lane just in front of you.
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Let's start with a little perspective. The LM 150 companies in this industry accounted for nearly $6.8 billion in revenue and employed more than 77,000 people full-time and another 20,000-plus part-time. And despite the economy, one of the biggest complaints we still hear about is the lack of workers: "Where's all that available labor that's supposed to be out there? I still can't find enough workers. The federal government really needs to do something about this!" one survey respondent remarked.
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