End-User Perspective
Facility Services companies, one of the major consumers of cleaning products, have their own preferences largely governed by factors like cost and brand. S. Madan Kumar, Associate Director – Facilities Management, Travel & Hospitality, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Hyderabad and Deepak Uppal, Executive Director, Vatika Hotels Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi share their views
S. Madan Kumar: Service providers would always be cost conscious while picking up consumables, but it again depends on the agreement they are having with the client. Few clients who have budget constraints, just expect cleaning to be done without bothering about the standard or the products. In such case, service providers pick products at low price instead of worrying about the lifecycle of the fittings or floorings or the interiors of the client’s property.
Nowadays most of the big clients like, Dr. Reddy’s, Wipro, Cognizant, Microsoft, Amazon, BACS, Ford or Cipla are particular about the life of their property and are about the cleaning standards and consumables. Hence, the client influence plays a major role when service providers pick cleaning products and fix budgets accordingly.
In Pharma industries, there are approved SOPs in all the operations and in housekeeping too, which no one can deviate unless there is a revision in the SOP. In practice, before creating any SOP, the client organizations test the best approved products in the market (99% international brands only) before they use in their shop floor for the first time.
International brands are already tested and approved by most of the Pharma giants across world. Hence anyone starting operations in a new facility, would not be interested in trying for a new local product; instead would utilize approved international brands to test if the products are suitable to their conditions, to decide the dilution ratio and frequency, and to finally prepare the SOP and approve the cleaning procedure.
Once the SOP is done, for any change in the product or procedure, it has to go through a stringent and multi-testing process, which is very tough and time consuming. Hence, most of the clients would want to go with the existing approved international brands only irrespective of the country of manufacture, instead of going with the new local products. Service providers can’t change the product, without approval from the client.
We have many Indian manufacturer for cleaning products in the market, but many are not considered by most of the clients for the following reasons:
Tools & tackles: We can get local products at one-fourth or half the rate of international products, but there is huge difference in quality. For example, a local dry mop stick available from 25 to 60% lesser cost do not last for more than three to four months, unlike international products that are in good working condition even after 18 months of utilization.
Chemicals: Most of the properties are going for EMS and Green building certifications, requiring ‘Green seal’ chemicals (environment friendly chemicals) instead of traditional acid based chemicals. Schevaran is manufacturing Green seal chemicals in India, but their chemicals are not recognized by either NTP or IRCA or OSHA.
Also we don’t have a single manufacturer in India, who can manufacturer all the cleaning products and supply required.
Service Providers would always be keen in supplying or utilizing Made in India products, but the availability of quality product and approval from clients are always a big question mark.
Expectations from service providers would be timely availability, cost effectiveness, certified products, variety of products for various utility, etc. At present, we don’t have all these combinations with Indian manufactures for cleaning products.
Cost-consciousness
Deepak Uppal: Although the level of professional competence of a large number of housekeeping/facility management companies has improved considerably, many companies/ contractors still lack proper knowledge of scientific cleaning. Their focus is mainly on minimising the overall cost by employing cheap labour and using general purpose cleaning chemicals/prod
ucts rather than specialised ones. Clients, on the other hand, lack of knowledge regarding available choices in cleaning materials and processes, which is an inherent disadvantage that indirectly impacts the business of service providers.
Studies have shown that consumers in “developed countries” tend to have a strong preference for products manufactured in their home country. In fact, they are willing to pay a premium price for such products over similar and significantly less expensive foreign goods. The key reason cited for such preference includes patriotism, desire to support domestic job market and a strong association between products manufactured in their home country and quality. In contrast, consumers in “developing countries” such as India, continue to exhibit a preference for international products, especially those manufactured in developed economies rather than domestic products.
Indian companies need to drastically revamp their brand in India and internationally too. India is a manufacturing hub and a shift in perception about the Make in India brand is the need of the hour. This needs to be addressed by branding “Brand India” and creating awareness of the India difference in manufacturing in a similar manner as the Japanese goods stand for “lean production” and Swiss goods for “precision”. A sustained effort to market the brands across key forums nationally and internally is required. Our industry should be encouraged to support and publicize the capability improvements that are being continually achieved by R&D and various product improvement programmes in the Indian cleaning material industry.
Many new international players have entered the Indian market. The use of professional grade cleaning chemicals has increased substantially, although it is still limited mainly to high end users in various segments like hotels, healthcare, commercial and residential segments.
Indian cleaning products industry is however burdened with the inherent disadvantage of low visibility while competing with the highly organized and vibrant global industry. The implications of ever evolving global industry landscape are very important and need to be considered for the “Make in India” brand to succeed.
The Indian industry needs to maintain its cost advantage in this competitive environment with both developing and developed countries. Other factors like infrastructure and those related to business environment, including operational ease need to be developed besides creation of quality awareness regarding Indian cleaning materials, play a significant role.
