07
December
2015
In the first of a series of articles from the Golf Consultants Association, GCA Member Neil Dainton shares his money saving advice:
- Benchmark: Talk to other clubs and managers. How many greenkeepers do they have? What percentage is payroll to sales, by department and overall? How many office staff do they have? It is not ‘one size fits all’, but ‘see how you compare’.
- Training: Invest in your employees and they will invest in the business. Happy content staff, work harder; go the extra mile and help make a difference to the success of the business.
- Staffing: probably the highest single cost in most golf clubs. Question, don’t just accept. At weekly meetings with heads of departments review rotas. How do they align with forecasted income for the week concerned? The right balance must be kept between service levels and cost.
- Communication: All stakeholders within the business must understand what the business is trying to achieve – product standards, service levels, profit levels. If the whole team understand these then they can work together to achieve these in balance.
- Review: Work with your heads-of-department team to strive for more, better products, improved service, controlled costs. Review and benchmark supplier costs and service.
- PO systems: Control spend at the point of ordering; it’s too late when the invoice is on the desk! Online ordering is available and can be used to control spend and ensure compliance of supplier used.
- Contract management: put yourself in the best position to renegotiate your contracts and never miss a termination. Contract Matters does all this in an online secure solution.
- Energy Management: short-term solutions via simple policies and procedures can save money, and working with your energy provider on the longer term. Material Matters, via BSE can provide help in this area.
- Maintenance Contracts: proactive maintenance saves money in the long run. Just fixing when it breaks will always cost more.
- Question: never stop questioning. Don’t accept simply because ‘it has always been done like that!’ Drive your teams to produce a better product, higher levels of service and greater profits.
Neil Dainton Golf Consultancy and Material Matters can help all golf clubs with all of the above. Neil is also a member member of the Golf Consultants Association. The non-profit Golf Consultants Association is an organisation with a wealth of expertise in delivering honest, practical advice and solutions to golf developers and operators around the world. GCA members can offer specialist skills in any number of aspects of golf operations, including buying, selling and financing golf developments; golf marketing and media relations; designing and building golf courses and driving ranges; environmental golf development; golf market research; and much more.
By GCMA
