INTERVIEW with Impullitti Owner Wayne Impullitti
More than 60 years ago, Impullitti Landscaping was founded on the principles of setting the standard for high quality work and excellence in customer service by Cliff Impullitti Sr. That desire to be the best has attributed to every aspect of the company’s success.
Wayne Impullitti, president, is the third generation of his family, to head a successful landscaping company. The recent addition of his sons Michael Impullitti and Tommy Impullitti , will represent the fourth generation of family in the landscaping business. Impullitti Landscaping prides itself on their rich family history and deep ties to the community it serves. Since 1952, Impullitti Landscaping has been relentless in this pursuit in all aspects of the business- design, build, maintenance, commercial snowplowing and customer service.
Q: How have you used technology to boost your company’s success?
A: As Impullitti Landscaping has grown to more that 100 employees and served more and more of the community, the need to become more efficient with our “paperwork” was also evident. There were two main reasons that we desired to move to an electronic time tracking system. First, we wanted to be able to provide better and faster information to our clients, especially when it came to critical and safety sensitive services such as snow and ice management. We can now instantly inform our clients of when services have been provided using LMN.
The second reason, was simply to improve office efficiency. Throughout the years, we have tried many systems, including data entering timesheets and dispatch systems, but nothing has even compared to the value of LMN. The time savings, has allowed for our office staff to focus their efforts on other projects. The accurate reports we are able to generate, help us to budget and plan crews and routes more efficiently. From a management perspective, the LMN program has helped in every aspect of running the business.
Q: How has technology passively shaped your company’s outlook?
A: We have always had some system of tracking the time spent by our crews, however, the reports we generated always were accompanied by the phrase, “Here are the numbers, but they aren’t quite right because…” There was always some reason, the crew didn’t turn in the paperwork, the information was incorrectly data entered, etc. But now, because the employee’s pay is tied to their record keeping in LMN, we have confidence that the reports are right! Now when we look at the numbers, we can make better decisions about how to plan, organize and move forward.
It forced us to do a better job estimating because that affects our scheduling. LMN has helped everyone in the company have a better understanding of how all functions are interrelated and affect the whole circle of business from estimating all the way through to billing.
Q: Please describe some challenges that you have recently faced.
A: We have several people in the company that are responsible for bidding work in our estimating department. However, each of them looked at things a little differently. This could create inconsistency in our estimates. Additionally, when trying to be competitive, the sales staff really did not know where the numbers needed to be in order for the job to profitable. By implementing the estimating system and using the budget for the company, now everyone knows with certainty what the bottom line is. Now we estimate jobs with confidence.
Q: What other resources from LMN have helped Impulitti succeed?
A: We had been evaluating various soft ware programs for nearly 7 years before we found LMN. All of them each had several attributes that we really liked and wanted for our business, but none of them could do everything we wanted. We had even considered getting a custom program built at one time so that we could have it track and do it all. And then we found LMN! It had been the answer to so many of the issues that the others soft ware programs just could not provide.
We attended the SIMA show in June, worked with the LMN team through the summer and fall, and all crews were using LMN for that snow season. Since then, we have taken some classes, like the Paperless Snow Co. Workshop. We also have had our managers participate in an LMN webinar provided through NALP, which helped improve their management techniques with the use of LMN.
The LMN team has been a great partner. The training videos and LMN support staff were outstanding in helping us with this endeavor. They were with us every step of the way even if it was at midnight! They understand the business not just the soft ware – and that makes all the difference.
Q: If you could ‘forecast the future’ – what do you see down the pipeline for your company? Is there any exciting news that you could share at this time?
A: As our company continues to grow, LMN will be an integral part of our operations. This Spring, Impullitti Landscaping will open a second location on the west side of Cleveland. LMN allows us to seamlessly track employee time for payroll, regardless of which shop the employee reports to, track hours, prepare reports, create schedules and process our billing from anywhere. That ease of mobility allows us to more quickly and easily respond to the needs of our clients and thus provide excellent customer service so that our clients can truly… Enjoy the View!
