Motivation/ Problem Background

Choppers Landscaping and Masonry is facing problems with their profit margin. Payroll is contributing 50% of sales, which is affecting growth due to the lack of capital to invest in other ventures for the company. The lack of capital over time will also contribute to the difficulty in staying in business. Choppers would like to expand their company to service more customers, but cannot do this if it is no longer in business. This problem is common with self-employed businesses, due to the lack of data that larger companies can easily acquire. Few people own and successfully operate small businesses and often the ones that do, don’t have access to systems to track their workers and job progress. It would be useful to solve this problem for the sake of the company as well as the employees, whose main source of income is from being employed by Choppers. 

This problem is mainly due to the inability to find reliable, long-term employees. Choppers pays their employees above minimum wage. Even with this, it is difficult to find someone who is willing to do hours of manual labor in various weather conditions who can complete the job in reasonable time. Most of the people employed at Choppers are immigrants, specifically Latin American. It is more common for this group of people to be employed in a business such as Choppers and many start their own companies when they realize they can make more money on their own. 

There are many illegal companies in the market without insurance. There is also a low entry cost to starting a landscape company, being that all you need is a lawnmower. Many of the new companies are started by those who were previously employed in larger landscaping companies similar to Choppers. This creates saturation in the market and makes it more difficult for legal companies to compete with illegal ones. Illegal companies can charge a lower rate than a fully licensed and insured company such as Choppers. Insurance is roughly $1000 per week, which is why most illegal companies choose to stay illegal.