REDEFINE ROI FOR HEALTHIER RETURNS
Savvy buyers calculate their return on investment when specifying new cleaning equipment. But factoring in the value of real and practical innovation can lead to even higher returns – and a new ROI, says James White, MD of Denis Rawlins Ltd.
What are your priorities as a cleaning contractor or facilities manager? This may seem like a simple question – with a straightforward answer, such as: “Keeping this building clean and safe for its users, and within our budget.”
What in practice makes this job much more complicated are the apparently competing and conflicting pressures, expectations and industry trends that also affect our decision-making.
To name a handful:
• Budgets – often frozen if not squeezed, this constant financial pressure means managers must keep a sharp eye on cleaning costs per square metre.
• Staff – as labour accounts for 85% of cleaning costs, it’s imperative to work efficiently, while also motivating and retaining team members.
• Innovation – automation, technical advances, and better ways of working can boost productivity, but for some, it’s a buzzword that’s more baffling than helpful.
• Standards – rising awareness of the importance of hygienic cleanliness and safe methods to our ultimate customers’ health, safety and wellbeing.
• Sustainability – avoiding and/or minimising use of chemicals, and in its widest sense, doing the right thing by people we employ and serve as well as the planet.
So what might seem like an easy task to outsiders becomes a challenge of juggling different priorities and demands. It’s not surprising then that managers sometimes don’t make the best choices – for example, by blowing budget on deep cleans instead of ensuring effective routine cleaning. Or some may choose new kit that’s overly sophisticated for the task and expensive both to buy and maintain.
54 | EXPERT ADVICE
Alternatively, the bewildering choice is an excuse for putting off investment and false economies such as running existing gear into the ground, or sticking with traditional, ‘cheap’ methods, such as mopping.
“So what might seem like an easy task to
outsiders becomes a challenge of juggling
different priorities and demands.”
Cleaning managers need to cut through this complexity by focusing on the three fundamental factors in modern cleaning.
Based on our long experience advising clients on how best to meet their cleaning needs and monitoring market for cleaning equipment, we’ve identified these as: measuring cleaning results, return on investment and practical innovation.
• Measurement: You can’t manage what you don’t measure. But that goes for microbes as well as cost per square metre. We’ve extended the use of ATP meters – that measure the marker for bacterial and other living cells (Adenosine TriPhosphate) – from food factory worktops to floors. It’s a perfectly practicable way of scientifically benchmarking the effectiveness of different cleaning methods and machines.
• Return on investment: Similarly, when it comes to gauging ROI, take into account not just the capital cost of acquisition, but also the lifetime costs of ownership. These include chemical consumption, consumables, servicing and spare
parts. Nor should labour costs and output be left out of the equation.
• Innovation: This is not about looking for the latest shiny new thing in cleaning technology. It’s a matter of having a watchful eye and open mind for techniques and equipment that solve your needs better. But it must be practical – and meet those first two tests.
Any innovation that fulfils these criteria can make a decisive difference to the cost-effectiveness of cleaning, especially by saving time. Which is why we want to redefine ROI as Return on Innovation. The philosophy is to invest smarter – i.e. in the best methods and innovations that can be proven to deliver better cleaning results and returns.
This is a holistic approach that combines advantages rather than presenting the specifier with a trade- off between those competing and complicating factors. We’ve found that innovative solutions can be lower-tech and lower-cost than existing methods and machinery – as well as more effective, frugal in chemical use and better for the operative.
So a manual method can clean escalators better than a specialist machine at a fraction of the cost.
A food service chain can adopt a much faster, automated system that delivers hygienically clean floors for no more than their previous annual spend on mops and buckets.
Cleaning operatives can sanitise toilets and their touch points without themselves having to touch the many pathogen-harbouring surfaces that are hard-to-reach and hard-to-face.
By adopting these kinds of innovation – and focusing on the new ROI – we can ensure healthier returns.
www.rawlins.co.uk twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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