How branch-based budgets promote growth

Photo courtesy of Southern Botanical

A recent change in company structure and budgeting practices is helping Dallas-based Southern Botanical to increase gross margin and hone in on their most profitable services and projects.

“In order to provide a little more clarity, not only from a financial standpoint but from an operational standpoint, we decided to apply the branch approach and to divide into branches,” says Dale Selby, director of corporate finance. “This also fed into the whole budgeting part, where we started to budget our financials by branch as well.”

Southern Botanical was founded in 1995 and offers landscape maintenance, enhancement, installation, design/build, large construction projects requiring landscaping, tree care and interior plant maintenance. Clients are both residential and commercial, but a little heavier on the commercial side.

In 2016, the company reorganized into branches, each of which now has a branch manager who is tasked with managing a budget just for that branch. Prior to this, there was one budget for all operations.

“It has provided a lot of great information, where we were making money, where we could make more money, where we needed to improve,” Selby says. “It was really an eye-opening project that allowed us to really dig deep into the company and explore where we needed to improve and where the opportunities for growth were.”

Read the full story from the May issue here.