American Society of Landscape Architects

1999 Business Indicators Survey
A Biannual Tracking of Professional Practice Activities

Highlights

The biannual tracking of business indicators was established by ASLA in 1997 to monitor landscape architecture’s profession practice aspects. Since it takes three data points to establish a trend line, this second survey provides only points of comparison. One of the original intentions of this tracking plan was to see if the profession is maturing in terms of impact and prosperity. Everything being relative, most of the indicators are up, but the improvement in the economy makes it difficult to separate real growth from the influence of a rising tide.

The age of firms was identified as an important measure because the prosperity of the profession is affected by the ability of firm founders to grow a business that they can then "transition" to a next generation, thereby taking some equity from a lifetime of work. It was noted in 1997 that while landscape architecture and architecture are very similar in term of firm size, the extent to which architecture grew older firms was notable. LA firms have aged nicely in the last two years, but this certainly is carried by the continuing health of the economy. Time will tell.

Highlights from the 1999 findings include:

• Developers continue to be the largest single client group for the profession, though public sector clients grew significantly;
• Billing rates rose by about 5%, which reflects the cross currents of an expanding economy with relatively low inflation rates;
• A notable change occurred in the shift away from the use of AIA standard contract documents in favor of the clients or the LA firms’;
• Reject of design competitions by most firms has grown to the 80% level;
• Marketing efforts have focused in on current client maintenance, which is probably more of a reflection on the economy;
• Firms carrying professional liability insurance while the number of claims are down;
• Schools, retail, and government are the markets reporting the greatest growth.
• City parks, golf courses, and resorts are among the markets showing some shrinkage sine 1997.

Data from a number of questions from the survey could not be used due to gross inconsistency in the way LA firms track the information, if they track it at all. Most surprising was the question concerning overhead rates. The units of measure and the number variations submitted were wildly scattered, as were the number of respondents who said they had not idea. The next survey should provide calculation guidelines. In the meantime, ASLA might sharpen its marketing of practice management seminars.

Jim Dalton
Strategic Counse

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