Question

what are the crucial issues affecting the customer landscape ? which shifts are underway ? where is the market heading ?

Answer 1

The market for landscaping services is much improved, but this business is still rife with challenges.

Finding, training and managing employees
Government policies and/or regulations which impede the ability to maintain acceptable profit margins and grow
Dealing with "fly-by-night" competition

Labor Crisis Continues for Landscapers

The landscape industry contributes 30% of their revenue to wages in 2015 (IBIS World). With that in mind, the biggest limit in the industry is the lack of labor/quality employees. Owners can no longer rely on temporary foreign workers due to ongoing government intervention which has disabled the ability to rely on this labor force. The quality of work has never been more important in a hyper-competitive environment that is fighting for employees that attain multi-skilled attributes. Lawn & Landscape has reported that 56% of companies have open positions in the industry, contributing to the issue of employment.

More Recruitment and Retention Programs for Landscapers

With compensation alone not being enough to retain employees, owners are now investing in recruitment and retention programs to help solve labor issues.

When looking at recruitment strategies, owners should be looking all year long:

Understand the roles that are needed, some may require different tactics for recruitment.
One must sell their company, use social networks as described above as a recruiting tactic to showcase the workplace as welcoming and attractive.
Companies should use regional, provincial, and national trade associations specific to the industry to gain further resources to find existing workers in the industry.

Looking at retention programs, owners in the landscape industry are looking at multiple ways to keep their employees. Here are a few ideas that are being implemented today:

Rewards: Landscapers are giving incentives to their employees, gift cards to coffee shops, nights out for dinner, and other ways to remind them that their work is impactful in the field. This will further motivate workers to deliver quality jobs along with building personal relationships with owners.
Small wins: Companies with successful retention programs have short-term, attainable milestones, for their employees. Long term goals are great, but creating little milestones will turn employee perspective from “were never going to get there” and into “we could actually do this.”
Constant Reviews: Successful landscape companies have one on one reviews with employees to keep them informed and heard by their manager or owner. Keep in mind that these reviews are not dictated by a checklist and are lead just as much by the employee as the employer; this is an opportunity for both parties to talk about the present and future of the company.
Don’t be Afraid to Change: Companies adapt to accommodate their employees to keep them happy. Policies around operations are being created as a collective group. They readdress and reiterate decisions to ensure complaints are addressed.

The Economy and Landscape Prices Continue to Correlate

Along with the economy, a boost in construction activity and investment in household maintenance has allowed landscapers to boost prices. The industry is seeing 63% of landscapers charging more for services now than they did 3 years ago (Lawn & Landscape). In addition, an increase in prices inevitably gives larger profit margins to owners.

Pricing is crucial. Negotiation has become commonplace and strategies vary when raising prices. For an in-depth look at these strategies, take a look at Lawn & Landscape’s take on the issue in their state of the industry report.

Landscapers rely upon redesigns of garden areas and maintenance of commercial and residential properties that are created directly from the demand of construction. In addition, you compete with the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) attitude that consumers leverage when negotiating prices.

Shifts are underway

“Systemic Shifts Are Underway” When that operational process is the government of the United States and someone on the news who is experienced and knowledgeable in this respect declares that “systemic changes are underway in the government of the United States,

Workplace Shifts Are Underway.  The demographics of the workforce are shifting: women now comprise nearly half of the workforce and millennials have overtaken boomers as the largest generation in the workplace. But traditional workplace policies and practices have not kept up, and they are not empowering—and ultimately retaining—top talent among women or Millennials.

The Great Generational Shift is Underway.

The market heading

There's no shortage of directional indicators available to an aspiring market technician: moving average ribbons, moving average convergence/divergence and its cousin, the MACD histogram, relative performance, the relative strength index; on-balance volume, William's Acc/Dist and the list goes on. However, when is it time to use a directional indicator, and conversely, when should technical analysis turn to oscillators like stochastic or Williams %R? The easy and under-used NYSE Bullish Percent Index gives concrete answers to these questions while providing a jumping off point for further, well-directed analysis of a particular industry or stock. It is the first step in formulating a winning strategy for trading and investing.

Closely followed strategist Jim Paulsen sees the possibility of a 15 percent correction in the stock market, which just logged its best January since the 1990s.

Market sentiment is too bullish, and stocks are "significantly overvalued," the chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group told CNBC on Thursday.

A market correction is defined as a decline of at least 10 percent from recent highs. The threshold for a bear market is a slide of at least 20 percent. So Paulsen's worst-case-scenario splits the difference.

Paulsen also sees the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates four times this year, with wage inflation picking up.