In this year’s Landscape Management LM150 issue, we have an opportunity to learn from leaders in the landscape industry about the importance of profitability over growth, for growth’s sake.
Growth and profitability are important aspects of any business. However, it is important to understand that they are not the same thing. Also, they’re not mutually exclusive.
From my perspective, profitability can be considered the measure of efficiency. Profitability enables a company to measure if the resources that are being put into the business are being optimized effectively. Since labor is such a critical component within the landscape industry, one of the key performance metrics of profitability should be calculating the productivity of your workforce and keeping labor productive.
While growth is fairly straightforward and can be measured in simple numbers, things can get a little tricky for a company that focuses only on growth. Focusing on growth alone may potentially help an organization grow in the short term, but could lead to incorrect longer term decisions. In the long term, it is not a focus on growth alone that will help increase your company’s potential to grow. You will have to focus on ways to increase your profitability to make your return on investment worthwhile.
We’ve heard from many of you that business is good and there are opportunities for continued growth. However, profitable growth calls for new and innovative approaches, and often requires new business decisions.
John Deere is dedicated to providing you with the products, support and integrated solutions to help you grow and prosper, because profitable growth is important for all of us.
Our commitment to your business doesn’t stop with providing innovative and quality products. John Deere Financial provides customized finance solutions to help you manage your business’ cash flow. Our experienced John Deere dealer network is there to support your business needs after the sale with the most extensive factory-trained service technicians and knowledgeable parts staff in the industry. Our dealers ensure uptime in the most responsive manner, because we understand that downtime is not an option when you are running a business!
As you review this section and the insights and experiences of the leaders within the industry, I would encourage you to ask yourself two questions:
- What is your strategic advantage?
- How could you develop business plans to deliver that advantage and achieve profitable growth?
Have a prosperous 2018.
Written by Ken Taylor, CLP,
Landscape Industry Certified
John Deere Corporate Business Division
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