<font color=orange>Innovation Awards:</font> Rewarding Great Ideas

Innovation. It’s a hot topic in business journals and at forward-thinking companies today. But what does this buzzword really mean? To many people, innovation means a new product or service that comes along and shakes up old ways of thinking. But you don’t have to invent the next big thing to be considered innovative. Innovation simply means doing things differently, whether your goal is retaining existing customers while attracting new ones, improving products and services, raising your public image or outpacing the competition.

As this year’s four inaugural Lawn & Landscape Innovation Award winners have shown, successful innovation can be as basic as finding ways to conserve gasoline or as complex as writing new software programs. What the winners of these special honors, sponsored by Syngenta Professional Products, share is a willingness to think outside of the box and try something new.
 
To learn more about innovation in the lawn and landscape industry, we turned to industry leaders who’ve grown their businesses over the years by listening to new ideas and trying new approaches. Here’s what they had to say:

Innovative companies encourage new ideas from within. Empowered employees think and act more creatively because they know management is open to new ideas and may even act upon them. The open exchange of ideas creates an environment in which change is possible, says Frank Mariani, president of Mariani Landscape in Lake Bluff, Ill. At Mariani, employees are encouraged to use the in-house Web site as an online “suggestion box.” It’s a place where employees make suggestions for new and improved services and critique existing practices without fear of retribution.

“We share it all – the good, the bad and the ugly,” says Mariani. “Many ideas for new services have come from within, and I think that keeps us on the front edge of our industry.”

Innovative companies respond and react to shifting societal patterns. Customer wants, needs and expectations are changing rapidly due to major shifts in society over the past 25 years, says Russell Frith, president and CEO of Holmdel, N.J.-based Lawn Doctor. Two-income households have changed people’s perceptions about how much time and money they’re willing to spend on lawn and landscape maintenance. At the same time, the Internet has made it possible for people to search for information about lawn care from the privacy of their homes. In the past, homeowners had to rely on estimates and expertise from a handful of competitors before making purchasing decisions.

“That means you have to be more knowledgeable about the product you deliver and have a better understanding of your competitors to figure out how to establish yourself and maintain your presence in the marketplace,” says Frith. “It’s a much more difficult business environment and much more competitive.”

Innovative companies find ways to step up customer service and response times. “You used to be able to say, ‘I can get there by the end of the week.’ Not anymore. Now, you’d better get out there right away or you could have a problem.”

Innovative companies aren’t afraid to try new approaches. Companies that innovate are always on the alert for new and better ways to do business, not just when the economy sours or competition heats up. Mariani Landscape, for example, recently became the first landscape company in the world to get ISO certified. ISO (International Organization for Standardization), is a network of national standards from 157 countries that seek to ensure quality, safety, efficiency, good management practices and more. Companies who apply for ISO certification (there’s a fee) have to adopt and abide by stringent standards that get revisited every year.

What ISO means for Mariani Landscape is simple: It’s “making sure you always use the best practices in everything you do, whether it’s answering the phone, mowing a lawn or putting together a proposal,” says Mariani.

At Lied’s Nursery Co. in Sussex, Wis., management is working to streamline and eliminate waste within the company through the principles of Lean, a practice for maximizing customer value and minimizing waste through streamlined operations made famous by Toyota. The aim is to increase the value to the customer while decreasing time, dollars, inventory and more. By eliminating waste (anything that’s not value-added), the client gets only those services it wants and needs, explains Tom Lied, CEO.

Innovative companies use technology to enhance customer service and employee productivity – not replace them. Technological tools such as e-mail, text messaging, Internet and global positioning systems (GPS) can be misused and time wasters, Lied says. But they can also improve efficiency, speed communications, generate more job leads and raise your company’s public profile. An innovative company knows how to exploit the best of technology and leave the rest behind.

One example is GPS, which can help field crews track their time utilization to maximize productivity and cut down on wasteful practices. But in the wrong hands, GPS can be very controlling and damaging to employer-employee relations, Lied says. “We all have to decide how to use the tool. At Lied’s, we trust the records our foremen maintain and don’t find it necessary to find out where they stopped for lunch.”

Technology also presents opportunities for how companies present themselves to the public, Lied says. An increasing number of clients find leads by surfing the Internet, and innovative companies can exploit this opportunity with polished and educational Web sites that close the sale. Presentation matters.

Forward-thinking companies use tech tools such as search engine optimization (improving the quality and volume of visits to your Web sites) and “pay per click” ads on search pages to capture Web surfers, adds Frith. “You have to do both.”

Innovative companies keep open minds. As Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter told Fast Company magazine: “The leaders of innovation don’t have to be the smartest people in the world; they have to know a smart idea when they see it.”