About 300 companies work at the cleaning market of Ukraine. However the expert think, that the market stays “in embryo”.

In 1990th this business wasn’t called “professional cleaning”, it was a regular cleaning done by private people. The market started its formation 5-7 years ago, when the first narrow-specialized companies appeared. Today all big office and trade complexes don’t have their own technical staff. Everything – from cleaners to detergents – is given by cleaning companies.

“When six years ago we started our business, it was difficult to find a client, to explain, why they need such services”, Iryna Kladko, the marketing specialist of Shaden Group, tells.

But since 2003-2004 the situation started to change. Right now the professional cleaners don’t need to persuade the clients – the clients are looking for them themselves.

The agiotage at the construction market, the growing of cleaning companies’ services, interest of foreign companies make the demand on cleaning companies’ services growing, what attracts the new players into the sphere.

“There’re lots of small companies (or “one-day companies”) at the market of cleaning services in Ukraine. At the same time we have lots of big players, their list is always changing”, Pavel Yablonsky, the consultant of foreign companies, tells, “We don’t have such situation in Europe any more. Our market is 5-7 years behind them.”

Leadership is Relative

We used to label the most popular and well-know companies as “leaders”. At the same time lots or real leaders are not so well-known. You may judge the cleaning business by longevity of contracts and quantity of clients. Such information is usually closed.

Yablonsky, who did a market research, says:

“The specificity of leadership in Ukraine is the following. The company, which was on the 20th position yesterday, is now number one, because of getting a big contract.”

In Western Europe and Russia the leaders are those companies, which have about 2-3 thousands of staff and about 100 contracts. By the way, the first five biggest contracts are not supposed to be a half of company’s turnover. Right now the following companies stand out at the native market: Dussman Ukraine, Griffin, Shaden Group, Den, CleanTech, Actual Service.

Business with Minimal Investments

Even though the competition on the market has strengthened since 2000, the threshold of entering the business is still low. Lots of companies start the business from buying the vacuum cleaner and detergents.

“When the market just started its formation, it was easier to start. Lots of companies took the private orders, tried to develop the business, step-by-step formatting the base of corporative clients”, Iryna Kladko tells, “Right now it’s much more difficult to develop a big company out of small one. You need some serious financial investments. We have a way for developing, there’re lots of branches, which don’t collaborate with cleaning companies: hospitals, electric stations, plants etc. We’ll get them in 10-15 years.”

The clients of cleaning companies are native and foreign companies, but the pioneers were the last ones. The specialists are complaining about the small cleaning enterprises, which may low the price of services.

Source: “Delo”