What’s Your Objective? – “Improved Reporting”
“A very powerful tool.” Don Sussman, President.

The Company

Designing and installing urban landscapes can be a daunting challenge, to say the least. The physical, practical, regulatory, and administrative hurdles can be enormous, making it difficult to operate a successful business. But since 1995, Town & Gardens Ltd. has thrived in the urban environment of New York City.

Town & Gardens specializes in designing beautiful urban spaces, private terraces, rooftop gardens, and green roofs, which have helped the company win multiple awards and media recognition. The company has set such a precedent for excellence that all of its new business comes through its vast network of referral sources, including past and current clients, other contractors, vendors, other professionals and employees.

The Need

Town and Gardens used customized, DOS-based software to run its operations in its early years. Co-owners Don Sussman and Chris Fitzpatrick soon realized that they needed a more robust system, however, and wanted a solution that was specialized for the landscaping industry and would accommodate their current and future needs.

A quarterly profit-sharing plan, coupled with an open-book policy that keeps all salaried employees apprised of T&G’s financial performance, required a software system that could deliver real-time financial dashboard information at the click of a button.
The partners embarked on an exhaustive review of available products and selected Asset in 2002. The company started slow, utilizing only the scheduling functionality at first, and dove in completely the following year, with implementation of the full package.

The Results

Asset delivers the real-time data necessary for empowered personnel to make on-the-fly decisions that both exceed customer expectations and optimize financial results.
T&G’s financial results have been impressive. In the eight years since the company implemented Asset, its revenues have quadrupled. Even more impressively, the company weathered the recent economic downturn by maintaining its gross profit amount (in dollars) even though revenues dipped significantly. “Part of that was careful management, part was a very productive and dedicated workforce, and part was the ability to always know exactly what our financial position was” said Don Sussman. “Asset is a very powerful tool.”

Sussman elaborated that the reporting capabilities are what makes the software so robust. “I can see at a glance when something is wrong. This is even the case with proposals: each account rep and designer uses Asset’s Proposal Manager to put them all together, and I can do a quicker review before they go out. That standardization is very valuable.”

Alison Friedland said “I literally couldn’t do my job without Asset’s Schedule Manager. I spend all day inside Asset – 8 to 10 hours – and also use Purchase Manager a lot creating purchase orders.” The Operations Superintendent handles the scheduling of the projects as well as purchasing of the plant material, so she juggles the hectic logistics of getting materials delivered to a busy street and ferried up 50 stories in a freight elevator, and she makes sure the right personnel are available to do the work.
With five plus profit centers within the company that are as varied as Maintenance, Installations, Seasonal, Holiday, Irrigation/Lighting, and Design, it might seem that Asset’s best value for T&G is the robust accounting capabilities. However, Sussman and Fitzpatrick are adamant that their account managers define value in a qualitative way, in addition to the more familiar quantitative manner. So the firm catalogues all kinds of other information inside Asset to ensure its clients are always happy. Sussman commented, “That might be something as simple as knowing that Mr. Johnson’s most valued possession is his Maple Tree. If we know that, you better believe that it will always be expertly pruned and maintained.”