Page 31 - CIJ Nov 2024 Digital Edition

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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.
BLUE-COLLAR But as Bikram puts it, “For
EMPLOYEES ARE service providers like us, going
TOUGH TO FIND, with the rental model is a good
SO CLIENTS ARE idea as we do not have to pay
upfront for the equipment.
LOOKING FOR Indian customers, whose
MECHANISED facilities we are servicing, the
MAINTENANCE subscription model does not
METHODS, WHICH matter as the customers are
REQUIRE TRAINED making amortised payments
HANDLERS – whether we call it rent or
payment on a monthly pro rata
Naveen Kumar basis, the customer is paying
the same kind of money for the
services.”
This is mainly because the
customer raises bills on the
becomes very high. A lot of headcount and items used
companies resist the idea rather than the cost of cleaning.
of going in for automation “When you go to buy a
or robotics and are happy Mercedes, you probably don’t
creating employment or a end up asking the cost of engine
large labour force. There are to the gear or the body of the
also government incentives car. You talk of buying the car
that are aligned with having a in its entirety. Unfortunately,
high manpower. There is also with cleaning services the
taxation benefit attached to customer uses templates that
higher manpower. It is a tussle lists down the items of usage
between going for automation and the cost thereof rather than
wherein the client is not willing the area that needs to be cleaned
to spend that kind of money and the quality that needs to be
as it requires an amount of maintained.”
capital investment to be made. Here is where the awareness
While everyone understands needs to be increased – pay for
robotics, price is one of the the cleaning and not the items.
factors delaying the progress of It is after all a service and not
implementing its use in services goods! CIJ

Clean India Journal•NOVEMBER 2024 31
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