Landscape Services for Portfolio Managers

Comparing properties that are not comparable

The instinct across a portfolio is to compare landscape cost per square foot and act on the outliers. That number is usually misleading.

A dense retail site with forty planters costs more per square foot than an industrial site that is mostly turf, and it should. The property types are different, the standards are different, and the comparison says nothing useful.

Two comparisons do work. Cost against the standard the site is actually held to, which requires those standards to be written down. And a site against its own history, which is where genuine problems show up first.

A property whose cost is rising faster than the rest of the portfolio, or whose complaint volume is climbing, is worth a visit. A property that is simply more expensive than another is probably just a different property.

What to standardise and what to leave alone

The tension across a portfolio is wanting one standard so sites are comparable while knowing the sites are not.

Both instincts are right, and the resolution is to standardise the structure rather than the specification.

Structure means the report format, the reporting rhythm, how scopes are written, what a standard looks like, and the escalation path. Specification means the actual tasks and frequencies, which should differ because the properties differ.

Done that way, two reports from two very different properties can be read the same way, even though the work behind them has almost nothing in common.

Standardise the report and you can compare sites. Standardise the scope and half of them are scoped wrong.

Rolling a standard out without breaking anything

Standardising a portfolio in one move is how these programmes fail. Contracts end at different times, sites have different contractors, and attempting all of it at once means doing none of it well.

The practical approach is to write the standard once and apply it as each contract comes up for renewal. Within two years most of the portfolio has converted with no disruption and no early termination cost.

Start with the site causing the most trouble rather than the easiest one. It proves the standard against a hard case, and the visible improvement is what funds the rest of the programme internally.

1. Write the standard scope structure once, with the tasks left blank
2. Apply it first at the most troublesome property
3. Record a condition baseline there before anything changes
4. Apply at each renewal rather than terminating contracts early
5. Review the standard annually against what the sites have taught you