Greenlawn Commercial Package Business
3 Pages Posted: 21 Oct 2008
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Greenlawn Commercial Package Business
Abstract
This case is used to study cost-based decision analysis. It has incremental, variable, semi variable, and sunk costs in a classic cost-price-volume situation, set in a service business.
Excerpt
UVA-C-2161
Rev. Jun. 19, 2009
GREENLAWN COMMERCIAL PACKAGE BUSINESS
Memorial Day found Amy Carter in her office putting the final touches on her plan for transforming Greenlawn Inc.'s Commercial Package Division. Her New Era project would be a hat trick for the division: she would recommend replacing most of the company's fertilizers and pesticides with a new generation of products that were easier to apply, lower cost, and more environmentally friendly. Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Greenlawn was the largest lawn-care and landscape-services company in the United States. Daughter of Greenlawn's chairman and CEO, Avery Carter, Amy Carter had been with the firm just over one year. A graduate of Ohio State University's College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, she had become the division's “thought leader” when it came to biological engineering and the environment. As New Era was also her first big proposal, she hoped she had not forgotten anything important.
History
Greenlawn began in 1971 as Chemcare, a division of a large science and technology company headquartered in Michigan. A spinout in 1989 followed by rapid growth in the 1990s had expanded its business from residential-lawn-care products and services into the commercial-landscape industry. By mid-2002, the company also provided total lawn and landscaping services, including mowing, edging and trimming, irrigation installation and maintenance, and landscape design. Greenlawn was the industry's technology leader, developing environmentally responsible pesticide and fertilizer spraying and delivery systems such as contained-spray applicators and dual-line spray guns. Specially built, compartmentalized, computer-controlled trucks with the bright Greenlawn logo were a common sight in residential neighborhoods and in industrial parks. Greenlawn even maintained the White House Rose Garden.
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Keywords: cost behavior, decision analysis
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