Having made a start with servicing small enterprises and focus on s
From offering just soft services, you have now expanded to provide multi solutions
Our focus initially was on soft services operations. We managed to enter housekeeping and explored other aspects of soft services like Pantry Management, Landscape Management and then gradually entered Pest management in 2003 and Electrical &Mechanical Services in 2006. We served only those companies who had the need for value for such value added services.
We have always laid special emphasis on training and human resource. We have an in house training department with an executive housekeeper as the head of the training division. Our trainers are spread across all the regions of India. The division has touched every State in the North right from Ladakh to UP, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab, Himanchal Pradesh and J & K. The company has offices in Panchkula, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore & Delhi – NCR.
Your plans for expansion and business development?
We have started working aggressively on the Business Support and Payroll Management front. We have attained a position amongst the 21 top SMEs in an Economic Times survey, which indicates a drive into the big league. This is also an indication as to how a tier two city operator is competing with the national & International operators.
There is a need for focusing on the quality of services and how it can be provided by a local or a regional player in a given environment. As a regional player, we need to bridge the gap between how well we can offer quality services as compared to the services provided by an MNC based on certain SLAs and SOPs.
The strategy to be adopted is that the core team should be in place that will select the whole team to mobilize operations and understand the need of the client. Innovation is into making accurate SOPs. Besides, SOPs should be made based on the need with no deviations in implementing it for enhancing the life of the facility.
We are today serving 300 clients through a market division besides the other two major channels of B2B media and Google Ads. The company has offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad. We want to make these offices as profit centres. We keep ourselves updated by participating in the trade shows & conventions.
Every SME has its own set of budgeting constraints. We are one of those companies among the select 100 to 150 in the country, that have attained a reasonably good size. We can now participate in the medium and bigger tenders of facilities ranging from 0.5 million sqft to 2 million sqft. Our focus is on mechanization which will help us in attaining better quality of services. We have been providing services to companies like Infosys, Vodafone, HDFC Bank, Tata Tele services for the past eight to ten years. Besides managing a few cinema houses, we are also serving Healthcare, Telecom, Hospitality, Banking and IT. We provide crystallization to enhance the gloss level of marble, which is required by any five star property.
There is a lot of focus on washroom hygiene because of various innovations. Washrooms today have automated dispensers and auto generators to clean WCs & urinals. There is a great emphasis on the right product at the right place. We have various sanitizers for washrooms and the concept of Green building is picking up with rising concerns about how to dispose off the chemicals and also use them in an environment friendly way. We are managing three to four green buildings as of today. Sunrise is closely working with Diversey, Roots Multiclean and Eureka Forbes as technology partners. We have an in house ERP system for creating better infrastructure and manpower retention which helps in making wages and offers transparency in the system.
As a part of the brand promotion, we will start strengthening the branches in the South and the West over the next three years. We have started providing pest control services in the eastern part. Pest Control Division is an All India operation barring three to four states.
What are the initiatives taken in terms of mechanization, human resources and training?
There should be a right combination of man, machine and consumables. Chances of human error can be minimized with appropriate mechanization. Our trainer has been selected from a top institution of the hospitality industry. As the company’s size is increasing day by day, we have introduced Train the Trainer programme. Around 50 supervisors are trained under this, who take forward the process of training other housekeeping staff. Our training division consists of a core team of four to six people who keep visiting the sites to train more people with a top to down approach to help create leadership for better empowerment of the staff.
You have the challenge of offering quality service at low cost…
We are facing challenges in the eastern market in terms of socio cultural issues and small market size. The biggest challenge in the industry lies in the gap between quality and quantity. Not every client is ready to pay for the service. Even after 15 to 20 years of FM Industry’s existence, small companies do not pay. The price index has gone up, accordingly, the cost on the housekeeping boy has gone up as well. We need to fulfill his requirement first, the aspect which many clients in the industry ignore.
All FM companies should come forward and determine not to work below minimum statutory guidelines. We should educate the clients that if this issue is not addressed properly, there can be labour unrest in the near future because awareness is increasing. If authorities in their audit report come to know that an FM Company has not paid the statutory benefits to the staff, the company in question can be wiped out and may have to bear severe penalties. Cost pressure is also increasing because of slowdown in the industry. Retention can be done only through quality services.