Interesting sessions at Clean India Conferences

Multiple conferences were organised on all three days of the Show by Clean India Journal – Hospitality Connect, Workshop for Facility Services and Industrial Cleaning.

Hospitality Connect

During the Hospitality Connect, an exclusive meet of hospitality segment, a Buyers’ Meet was conducted, where vendors of cleaning products made presentation and interacted with prospective buyers.

The session opened with a debate between hotel housekeepers and pest management companies on “Pricey Pests”. The debate was moderated by Avril Sule, Assistant Professor, Sheila Raheja Institute of Hotel Management, Mumbai. The panel members were Avril Sule, Associates Professor, Sheila Raheja Institute of Hotel Management; Sivakumar Somasundaram, Consultants Entomologist & Master Trainer; Uday Menon, General Secretary, Indian Pest Control Association; Saravan Kumaran, Director-Housekeeping, Oakwood Residence Kapil Hyderabad; Yogesh Deshmukh, Executive Housekeeper, Novotel Hotels & Resorts, Hyderabad Airport; Sulabha Vidhate , Executive Housekeeper, Ramoji Film City; G.S.S. Prakash, Consultants, Pest and Vector Management.

It was clear in the debate that even a guest appearance by a pest can completely ruin the reputation of a hotel and be detrimental to the occupancy rate. In a heated discussion, it became evident that the results of the service were limited to pest control rather than pest management which was expected by the housekeepers. Pest control providers claimed that housekeepers were ignorant of chemicals while the housekeepers pointed out that the services were not prompt and regular. It was a battle that rallied back and forth with all the aggressiveness of a big fight. The final outcome was directed to the need for being willing to pay the price to get the job done!

The seminar meet was supported by I-Professional Housekeepers Association and the Hospitality Purchasing Managers Forum. The buyers, following the session, met the exhibitors individually and places orders for their respective hotels.

Workshop for Facility Service

The Day 2 seminar sessions were specially designed for the benefit of the service providers. Over the decade, a large number of service providers have started operation to cater to the increasing demand for outsourced services. The cleaning requirement and standards expected depend on the function, size and location of the end user company. However, it is observed that the many of the problems arise from not having the knowledge on drawing a service level agreement and in operations& manpower management. The workshops on SLAs and operations management were conducted by Rajiv Nehru, Head Training & Product Development – South Asia, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and Jolly Kochery, CEO, Blue Bell Integrated Facility Services. Vishal Mani, Country Head, MCS Solutions spoke on the Role of Digital Platforms in Cleaning Programs.

Industrial Cleaning

As with the previous Clean India events, this year too, the session on Industrial Cleaning was well attended by both the FM professionals. On the panel for discussing the advantages and challenges in outsourcing industrial cleaning were Vinay Deshmukh, CEO, Forbes Facility Services Pvt. Ltd Srikanth Kumar Swami, Managing Director, OCS Group (India) Pvt Ltd an R Aravind Babu, Director, Head- Facilities Management, Travel & Hospitality, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. There were presentations on Pest management, Mechanised cleaning Floor maintenance and Chemicals for industrial cleaning.

Read more about each of the sessions in the forthcoming issues of Clean India Journal.