Features - State of the Industry Reports
2010 State of the Industry: John Allin’s Analysis
5/26/2010
Here are four thoughts on this year’s State of the Industry research.
- I had not expected that the overwhelming first choice for becoming more educated would be through trade magazines with the Internet coming in second, which I expected to be the favored venue. Over the years I have witnessed the industry become more sophisticated, and there is little doubt the Internet has had a profound effect on this trend. Trade publications and the Internet being ranked so highly bodes well for the snow removal industry.
- It was no surprise that well over 50 percent of the respondents are in the landscape business in some fashion, and performs snow services as part of their service offering. Some of the landscape-based associations believe all snow removal is done by landscapers. That’s just not true. While almost all landscape contractors in the snow market do snow clearing, not all snow clearing is done by landscapers. Some of the very largest snow contracts in the country are done by pavement maintenance companies and/or excavation/dirt contractors. However, I don’t believe these snow contractors are growing in sophistication as quickly as their landscape colleagues. This is unfortunate.
- A disturbing trend I noticed is in the area of pricing services. The majority of the respondents are still doing work on an hourly-rate basis. As most already know, this is the lowest-margin methodology in pricing snow services to clients. This begs two questions: First, are we not doing a proper job educating the snow industry, and second, why can’t those who educate the snow industry do more to change this low-margin philosophy?
- A few years ago rising fuel costs were creating considerable heartburn. Uneducated snow contractors felt the rise in fuel costs were going to force the industry to reevaluate pricing scenarios and potentially force many snow contractors out of business. Yet, today we find fuel issues to be low on the radar. Way back when, I was preaching that fuel costs had a very, very low affect on the overall bottom line – and there were other factors to be considered which had more impact on that bottom line. It would seem the industry has adjusted to the “new” fuel pricing.
John Allin is a columnist and regular contributor to Snow Magazine.