Recommendations

Recommendations 

Our team has found two information systems that could be altered in order to get maximum usage and efficiency out of them for multiple positive effects on Lawns Unlimited. 

Social Media

Lawns Unlimited currently has accounts on two social media providers. These include Instagram and Facebook. Both of these social media providers can be extremely beneficial to Lawns Unlimited. However, they are not using them to their fullest potential. Instagram does not reach a broad range of current and potential customers. Most users are between the ages of 18-29 and many of those users do not even own property that would need a landscaping company to perform work for them. Now, we can use Facebook to reach a much broader range of customers, but it is not updated as much as it should be. By not updating, we are unable to expand our customer base and thus limits us to make any improvements and gain clientele. With proper usage of these two providers, we would be able to communicate and interact better with customers.

The first solution we can use is to add the updating of the social media sites to a current employee's job description. This would be beneficial because a current employee already has knowledge about how Lawns Unlimited Operates. They will be able to interact with customers as need be. For example, they can answer questions or schedule jobs needed by customers. Because they already work for Lawns Unlimited, they will be able to update Facebook and Instagram as soon as a job is completed. For example, can upload a picture to Facebook of a new service they provided to hopefully catch the eye of a potential customer. Adding a "share" button to a customers picture of their lawn is also an option, so there friends on social media will be exposed to Lawns Unlimited as well.

The second solution is to hire a part-time employee to focus on social media. This will be on the cheap said as far as salary is concerned because a full time employee is not needed. They do not even have to be present on the job site. We can hire a tech savvy individual who knows how to work with social media very well. This employee will have no other distractions, just to update our accounts. No prior landscaping experience is needed, so hiring should be easy. Also, having an outsider come in and perform this operation for us could lead to new ideas for Lawns Unlimited.   

Microsoft Office and QuickBooks

Currently, Lawns Unlimited uses Microsoft Excel, Word and QuickBooks to perform everyday operations. This has been working for them, however it would be much easier to have all of these in one single information system.

The first solution is that we can use Access to create a central database of all this information in Excel, Word and Quickbooks. With this, we can create something custom that fits the needs of Lawns Unlimited. Information would be easier to attain and work with. Employees will be familiar with this solution because it will be created by us.

The second solution is that we use Caspio. Caspio is a business platform that helps businesses create a database for their information. No coding is needed for this, so we do not have to hire an outsider who is familiar with coding to help us accomplish this. Caspio also will help to create business reports that show the current status of Lawns Unlimited. We are able to use other services and preexisting systems in what we create using Caspio. Caspio can we used on any device as well, so a laptop is not needed. It can be updated from a smart phone on the job site for up to date information