New paths to competitive advantage
Cleaning has to be cheap
Cleaning is a product that customers expect to be cheap. It is therefore quite a challenge to work with green services in a market where the price is often the determining factor. Denmark's largest supplier of cleaning, the service company ISS, attempts to deal with this dilemma by uniting its working environment, quality assurance, economic and environmental work.
"In the 1960s, ISS systematized cleaning, for example by means of time studies and standardized methods. That was the foundation for our expansion. Since then we have continued efforts to develop our methods," says Jesper Møller, Executive Vice President of ISS.
ISS has investigated the working environment, quality assurance, economic and environmental aspects of a large number of cleaning methods. Among other things, this led to the development of a floor mop that is both effective and economic and gentle towards the environment and working environment. One of the advantages of the mop is that it does not use much water. This reduces resource consumption and improves the working environment because there are no heavy loads to lift. Another working environment benefit is that the new mops and cloths offer less resistance when in use.
When ISS investigates cleaning methods, it is not sufficient that a product does really well in one of the four areas - it must meet minimum requirements in all four areas.
Acknowledged by major customers
"We believe that the major international customers in particular will acknowledge that we work seriously with the environmental aspects. We are increasingly aware of environmental demands from large organizations with professional procurement staff. An example is the hospital sector. But we also know that the price is very important. We therefore have a mixed approach aimed at satisfying both customers, staff, investors and other stakeholders," says Jesper Møller.
Wherever possible, ISS uses cleaning agents bearing the Nordic Swan ecolabel. The enterprise cooperates with their permanent suppliers to get the Swan-ecolabelled products distributed to countries outside the Nordic region. However, experience shows that the professional procurers are not very interested in whether or not the cleaning agents are Swan-ecolabelled. They attach greater importance to documentation for a good environmental management system.
ISS Denmark A/S, Copenhagen,
15,000 employees.