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Bobyard is starting a new partnership with Horizon Distributors, marking the official rollout of Bobyard’s Irrigation Takeoff product for landscaping and irrigation distributors.
For Horizon, irrigation takeoffs account for roughly 30–40 percent of the sales team’s time. To keep up with demand, Horizon has historically relied on third-party providers such as PlanBid, spending up to $10,000 per month on outsourced work.
The partnership with Bobyard shifts that model. By bringing irrigation takeoffs in-house with AI, Horizon can reduce reliance on outsourcing, increase turnaround speed and give the sales team back time previously spent on manual measurements.
“If we could take away the mundane counting, that alone would justify the investment,” said Eric Rippe, general manager at Horizon. “More importantly, owning the takeoff process creates new opportunities to focus on driving sales and delivering higher-value customer service.”
With automated area, turf and linear footage measurements alongside irrigation counts, Horizon sees potential to proactively recommend additional materials outside a contractor’s original scope, turning estimating from a cost center into a growth lever.
“We see real potential to expand into new product categories by leveraging Bobyard’s takeoff capabilities,” said Phil Stephens, vice president at Horizon.
According to the company, this partnership officially introduces Bobyard’s Irrigation Takeoff solution, purpose-built for distributors who want to:
- Reduce expensive outsourcing
- Reclaim estimator bandwidth
- Offer premium takeoff services to high-value customers
- Expand product lines through better quantification
- Strengthen customer retention
