Hygiene turned into a watchword when people returned to their workstations in offices and to the shop floor at manufacturing sites in 2022. Manpower supply limitations were felt in labour-intensive businesses, especially those in the cleaning industry. The focus on hygiene solutions had increased demand from management for cleaning methods using cost-effective practices. Rising to this challenge, service providers changed the way they operate.

Training to handle technology for staff in client offices and work sites was one way to hasten the acceptance of digitalisation and mechanisation. Service providers invested in upskilling their staff in using the latest equipment, understanding the latest processes introduced in cleaning, and implementing logistics aspects based on IoT solutions.

Clean India Journal interacted with Manoj Parekh, Managing Director, OCS Group India; Saurabh Agarwal, Managing Director-Unify Facility Management Pvt. Ltd; Bikram Chadda, Managing Director-Impression Services Pvt. Ltd and Naveen Kumar, General Manager, Clean4U Services Pvt. Ltd on the road travelled by Indian service providers since 2022, to get their insights on Facility Management, a business moving in step with change and growing at the same time. Both also answered queries about the emphasis on sustainability.

The challenge in India is that the market is still driven by a Cost+ model; the industry needs to move to a productivity-based or outcome-based model.

Saurabh Agarwal

Changes in product demand

Saurabh Agarwal touched upon new priorities in India recovering from pandemic restrictions. “The focus has been on hygiene since we came out of Covid. As a result, a lot of things that were not looked at earlier enjoy attention in all facilities, right up to the highest level of management. The focus is on the quality of cleaning solutions and related machinery. The cost of staff and services is going higher, and while hygiene is critical, the focus is on bringing down the cost. Machines reduce dependence on manpower; their usage has increased by 15 to 20 per cent and is growing. International companies and their products have gained acceptance. Clients realised the hassle of coordinating with many vendors; earlier, decisions were taken by many regional heads. Clients went on the lookout for pan-India vendors, and larger organisations with multiple services are getting more business.”

Manoj Parekh spoke along the same lines, stating: “Covid struck in 2020, after which for almost one and a half years, most clients and service providers were working from their homes, not getting to their sites. Things started to turn around somewhere in mid-2022 when we started to see huge demand for facilities management requirements. Manufacturing was moving, and there were serious challenges. Clients were actually pushing us to use technology to reduce costs and improve productivity from the resources available.”

Clients don’t want to really invest in capital expenditure initiatives: they prefer a vendor partner to offer a rental model

Manoj Parekh

Changes from the service provider side

FM companies increased their range and quality of services in keeping with client requirements. Saurabh elaborated: “Technology was one of the major drivers in facility management; we worked on IoT solutions, building solutions around air quality and power quality monitoring. Our setup in Bengaluru helps run the facility from the back end, from conventional facility management to robotics. Specific IoT solutions we implemented include real-time monitoring of HVAC systems, predictive maintenance for critical equipment, and energy optimization strategies to reduce operational costs.”

Manoj added: “This is where the Smart Washroom came in. Having identified what can be done in a washroom to help reduce human intervention in basic cleaning, where every half hour a janitor would be required to clean the washroom, IoT sensor based soap dispensers, napkins, or tissue rolls came in to the picture. Measured by the number of footfalls, the janitor would get an SMS alert to go to the washroom and do the cleaning. IoT enabled sensors monitored the Air Quality in the washroom; These IoT sensors can measure 16 parameters of Air Quality in the washroom and also send alerts.”

Investing in manpower and technology

For Saurabh, raising the level of training for the workforce is critical, as it is for other players in the FM industry wishing to make an impact. “We are evolving as per client requirements, and service deliveries are much higher when compared to three or four years back. Clients are more impatient now, and we are adapting, changing our training process, and upskilling our people because better-trained staff mean better productivity, which in turn can reduce costs. It is a constant endeavour to provide more training, helping in career progression and skill enhancement. We have around 12,000 people across about 1,200 site locations, offering a mix of soft services, technical services, and integrated FM services, including landscaping and pest control. Our gross margins are around 11 per cent, and net profits are about three per cent, which is better than the industry average.”

Convincing clients to invest in technology is a significant challenge for companies in the FM business. “The biggest challenge when we talk about automation, robotics, and technology-based investments is CapEx,” emphasizes Manoj. “Clients don’t want to really invest in capital expenditure initiatives: they prefer a vendor partner to offer a rental model. Keeping this client requirement in mind OCS started a rental model, and the question was how to build a four-to-five-year rental model and deliver that to the client. After many permutations and combinations over the years, we have found much traction and increased client interest in 2024. Clients have started to accept these concepts as a value addition and this has given OCS better margins. We moved from single-digit margins to double-digit margins by adapting these technologies and offering these to our clients.”

Investment in training is necessary to adapt and implement technology-based solutions by the FM service provider. “OCS offers hard and soft services,” Manoj explains. “For hard services, to clients such as in the Data Centre industry, the challenge is that they don’t accept an engineer if they aren’t from a Data Centre background. The Indian Data Centre market value will soar from $4.35 billion in 2021 to a projected $10.09 billion by 2027. OCS India has created a talent pool by getting our existing employees from different industries and putting them through a crash course to understand the requirements of data centre clients. People from this talent pool receive higher salaries, which has helped us to retain talent and deliver even better service to clients.”

“We have also implemented comprehensive training programs for janitors and supervisors, utilizing mobile apps for task assignments, digital checklists for quality assurance, and online learning modules to enhance their skills and knowledge.”

Manoj also mentioned soft services: “Janitors and supervisors were not using mobile phones or digitised ways of using checklists. Our training teams convinced them about technology, and IT teams implemented these solutions at the sites. Over time, janitors and supervisors realised digitalisation is the future. Clients started to adopt these technologies. We have increased our trained teams, which has led to greater productivity and better service quality. Better productivity reduces costs and helps the employees in career progression. We have around 15,000 employees, operating at over 1,200 sites across India, offering a mix of soft services, technical services, and Integrated Facility Management services.”

With all the digital technology support for janitors, who are often at the lower end of the pay scale, Manoj believes that changing employer perceptions is crucial. “As we adapt these technologies, janitor salaries remain at minimum wage. Now, there is a focused way of delivering services, and our staff on the ground are happy because everything is measured on a real-time platform. Power BI dashboards give real-time data on cleaning hours, issue resolution, and other important metrics.

Sustainability and Net Zero goals

In these modern times, clients are focused on sustainability and Net Zero goals, and technology in FM should assist them in achieving these targets. “We are educating our staff on Net Zero and sustainability initiatives, such as water conservation, energy audits, green buildings, green cleaning solutions, and enhancing greenery with plants that consume less water. We also focus on waste management by tying up with vendors who handle e-waste properly,” explained Saurabh. When asked if these initiatives are part of client SLAs, he noted, “The challenge in India is that the market is still driven by a Cost+ model; the industry needs to move to a productivity-based or outcome-based model. For example, one of our clients has implemented a comprehensive waste reduction program, reducing their overall waste output by 20% through recycling and composting initiatives. This not only benefits the environment but also reduces operational costs.”

He added, “Over the next four to five years, getting manpower for our industry will be a challenge. In the soft services sector (janitors and supervisors), it’s not a job that everyone aspires to do. Our industry needs to move towards a square-foot-based or outcome-based model rather than a manpower-based one.” Though the industry won’t change overnight, efforts to adapt have begun and are expected to rise over the next two to four years.

Blue-collar employees are tough to find, so clients are looking for mechanised maintenance methods, which require trained handlers

Naveen Kumar

Third perspective

Clean4U caters to various business categories, from schools and hospitals to corporates, and has expanded from Bengaluru to Coimbatore and Hyderabad. Housekeeping and deep cleaning are focus areas.

Naveen Kumar outlined the challenges and solutions: “Blue-collar employees are tough to find, so clients are looking for mechanised maintenance methods, which require trained handlers. Costs have increased significantly over the last two to three years, about tenfold since before Covid. Customers are asking for mechanised methods to cut down on costs.

The challenge is getting trained employees, who demand higher salaries after internal training. Our attrition rate is about 10 per cent, usually due to personal reasons. Client requirements are constantly changing; for example, showrooms require frequent floor polishing due to high footfall, while in hotels, footfall is lower. Clients often ask for airport standard restrooms with dedicated staff to keep them dry. We educate clients on the cost implications of maintaining such standards. We use local green products, and when clients insist on specific brands, we arrange for those as well.”

While everyone understands robotics, price is one of the factors delaying the progress of implementing its use in services across segments

Bikram Chadda

Robotics in the Indian market

The universal interest around the world about the drivers, are very different. High labour rates, it is more about availability of labour and low about the consistency of cleaning systems. How does robotics fit in the Indian market?

“Speaking broadly, of the various segments in India where robotics is playing and will play a major role are Data Centres and Aviation. Service providers are catering to small, medium to large size data centres anywhere from 2 to 200 megawatt. These data centres require specific cleaning and do not have much human intervention and do not depend upon people. Here is where robotics come into the picture,” explains Manoj.

Critical infrastructures like the Aviation also require robotics. India is coming up with 25 to 50 new airports in the next couple of years. India has already privatised almost 16 airports and every year seven airports are going to be privatised. This opens the doors to service providers to enter into the aviation sector where robotics will play a major role in automation and reduced human intervention.”

Bikram Chadha opines that “At the same time, India has a cheaper labour force. Comparatively, the cost to acquire such equipment becomes very high. A lot of companies resist the idea of going in for automation or robotics and are happy creating employment or a large labour force. There are also government incentives that are aligned with having a high manpower. There is also taxation benefit attached to higher manpower. It is a tussle between going for automation wherein the client is not willing to spend that kind of money as it requires an amount of capital investment to be made. While everyone understands robotics, price is one of the factors delaying the progress of implementing its use in services across segments. However, the change is happening and we are all ready for this. It is only a matter of time. This decade is going to launch India into a different trajectory all together both in terms of consumption and spending.”

What is likely to pick up during this decade is also the subscription or rental model or more sophisticatedly put, “Robotics as a Service or Equipment as a Service” will be the new trend.

But as Bikram puts it, “For service providers like us, going with the rental model is a good idea as we do not have to pay upfront for the equipment. Indian customers, whose facilities we are servicing, the subscription model does not matter as the customers are making amortised payments – whether we call it rent or payment on a monthly pro rata basis, the customer is paying the same kind of money for the services.”

This is mainly because the customer raises bills on the headcount and items used rather than the cost of cleaning. “When you go to buy a Mercedes, you probably don’t end up asking the cost of engine to the gear or the body of the car. You talk of buying the car in its entirety. Unfortunately, with cleaning services the customer uses templates that lists down the items of usage and the cost thereof rather than the area that needs to be cleaned and the quality that needs to be maintained.”

Here is where the awareness needs to be increased – pay for the cleaning and not the items. It is after all a service and not goods!