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Cleaning: What Is in Ukraine? “Torgovuj Expert”, № 10, (63) October 2008

Cleaning In Ukraine

The image of the company depends not only on its location, architectural specificities, status of lend-lords, but also on the look of fa?ade, adjoining territory and also the cleanliness inside the premises. In order to make the supermarket, hypermarket, shopping and shopping and entertaining centers or the logistic complex shiny, the owners may use two ways: keep their own cleaning service or ask the cleaning company for help. According to the operators of Ukrainian cleaning market, the last variant is more and more proper for most of the businessmen.

Cleaning is a Business for Professionals Only

From the moment Ukraine got its independence and became open for the foreign companies, the professional office, trade centers and warehouses, which correspond to the international requests, appeared in our country. On realizing the potential of Ukraine, the foreign investors started investing their money into the new projects. The progressive growth of Ukrainian market of commercial estate leads to the development of the other markets, including the market of cleaning services.

“The market of cleaning services increases proportionally to the market of real estate of Ukraine. Every year the developers put into operation the new trading, office and other objects. Besides, the foreign operators open lots of supermarkets and hypermarkets in different regions of our country. That’s why the professional cleaning services are very essential”, Maksim Vinnik, the director of selling department and development of Chistyj Svet Ltd., assures.

The same opinion has Aleksey Postonogov, the manager of the cleaning companies group ‘Actual Service’.

“The native cleaning market suffers the period of intensive growth right now. The main part of orders for cleaning services of Ukraine is in Kiev and the biggest regions centers. However it’s necessary to say, that cleaning has a big potential for the further development. Right now the Ukrainian market is occupied by cleaners for more than 20%. The volume of orders of big cleaning companies growth for 30-100% annually. They serve almost all kinds of premises – office, trade, living, warehouses and industrial, and also the adjoining territories”, he says.

At the same time the operators of cleaning market notice, that, equally with the growing popularity of service, the number of companies, which represent it in Ukraine, is increasing.

“Lots of editions and statistic reports say about the presence of 150-200 cleaning companies in Kiev. But if you look more precisely, you’ll see, that the cleaning market consists of maximum 10 companies, which really do the qualitative service, which correspond to the European standards. The rest of the companies exist for a very short period of time. Almost the same situation is in the whole country. It means, that it’s really early to speak about a big amount of companies, which work on the native market”, Iryna Kladko, the marketing specialists of Shaden Group, believes.

Both small and big operators of the market try to get a client. The main vapor in this fight is a price of cleaning.

“The small companies, which appear in Ukraine, attract the attention of customers with the price of services, not with their quality and other advantages”, Olga Tarasenko, the director of Svit Chistoty Ukranie Ltd., thinks.

The price of cleaning services is made by each company – depending on the set of factors, including the area of cleaning, the number of staff, bathrooms, characters of coverings and pollutions, special requirements of the client (for example, care for the indoor plants etc.), support consumables for the sanitary rooms, the schedule and terms of works.

“The status of the object and the requirements to the age of staff also influence on the estimate”, Maksim Vinnik assures.

The Foreign Cleaning Servant

To make the quality of cleaning corresponding to the price of it, the cleaning company should use the proper equipment, tools and chemicals. As those aren’t produced in Ukraine, they are brought from abroad.

The equipment is brought from Italy (VDM) and Poland (Vileda). The professional high-quality chemicals are bought from Avmor, Chemspec, Spartan and Frankling Cleaning Technologies (USA), Swish (Canada), Hagleitner (Germany).

According to the words of Ukrainian specialists, all these kinds of remedies are certified in our country. As regard the chemicals, produced in Ukraine, it can’t be a competitor to the foreign products, because it’s never used for professional cleaning.

Among the cleaning “servants” listed every company chooses those, which do the cleaning tasks better. For all that there are no restrictions and rules concerned with the using of certain chemicals in our country.

“Ordering the cleaning service, you should pay attention on the chemicals used”, Irina Kladko advises, “The main requirement is a safety of chemicals and their correspondence to the sanitary and hygienic norms of Ukraine. Besides, you should remember, that each kind of premises has to be cleaned with special chemicals. For example, while cleaning the industrial premises, our company uses the chemicals of Spartan, we use chemicals of Hagleitner, while cleaning the bathrooms. The professional chemicals allow achieving the perfect results and prolongs the life of coverings, furniture and floors”.

Maksim Vinnik also has its opinion about the careful choosing of chemicals.

“When using the chemicals, it’s necessary to take into consideration such factors as type of the covering, pollutions and elements of cleaning. While doing the cleaning after construction (removing of cement stains and slaps, paint, lime deposits, we often use the alkali remedies. While doing the everyday cleaning (including the machinery and manual cleaning of the floor, washing of the glass), we’d rather use the acid chemicals and the neutral chemicals for natural coverings”, he says.

“When making the detergent solution, you should strictly check the doses of detergents. Otherwise it’s possible to damage the covering – burn with acid or leave the stains. As a rule, the professional detergents consist of the concentrate, which is diluted with water: 5-10% of chemicals, the rest is water”, Maksim Vinnik adds.

Amongst the producers of professional cleaning techniques, presented on the native market, the specialists distinguish Chemspec, Tennant (USA), Electrolux (Austria), Duplex, Numatic International (Great Britain), , Kunzle & Tasin (Italy), K?rcher, Kranzle and Nilco (Germany), Nijfisk (Dania). There’s lots of equipment, however each premise and type of work requires the special one. For example, Maksim Vinnik, referring to the experience of his company, claims, that it’s better to use the special one-disk machines floor-polishers for the premises with lots of stuff, or if the area of cleaning is really small, or there’re some steady pollutions. The high-productive cleaning technique (accumulator floor-polishers) is perfect for the everyday cleaning of big and wide areas – trading premises, galleries, corridors.

However, the specialist claim, that the cleaning of hypermarkets, shopping malls and entertaining establishments need the more complicated equipment, than the logistic complexes. Correspondently, these machines differ from each other with price and overall dimensions.

“The cleaners of trading objects use less expensive technique, than the logistic complex cleaners. For example, the machines, which cost about 100 thousand grivnas, are used at the logistic objects. They are as complicated as a car. At the same time the trading malls cleaners use small machines, which cost in average 21-25 thousand grivnas each”, Aleksey Postonogov says.

Difficulties Are Everywhere

It seems so easy to organize a cleaning process: you just need to bring some technique to the trade object or to the warehouse, employ the workers – and you’ll get the necessary results. However the cleaning specialists assure that it’s not that easy.

For example, the cleaners of trade and entertaining malls always deal with certain difficulties. According to the words of Aleksey Postonogov, the objects built 3-4 years ago are not provided with the proper warehouses and storerooms; they also don’t have the elevators, escalators and other equipments, which allow moving technique from floor to floor.

“Right now the situation changes for better. Creating the plan of trade object, the architects and designers think about the way it’ll be cleaned”, Aleksej Postonogov assures.

Olga Tarasenko names the saving money on chemicals as another difficulty.

“I often see, that the chemicals are used in an improper way. Afterwards you have to redo this job”, she complaints.

Besides, Aleksey Postonogov adds to the problems of Ukrainian cleaning market the following. The managers of leading foreign companies, ordering the cleaning service, don’t take to consideration the geographical location of our company. Compared to other European countries, the level of pollution is much higher in Ukraine. Correspondently, some objects located in our country should be cleaned six times more often than in Germany or Poland. As the whole technique and chemicals is imported, it’s not rated for our intensity of cleaning, correspondently, it deteriorated much faster. That’s why the cleaning in Ukraine can cost more expensive, than in the European countries.

The other complexity for cleaning companies is a trying of some customers to save their money on cleaning. However the cheap service, according to the words of cleaning operators, finally costs more; the low-quality service got for the lower price makes him disappointed in Ukrainian cleaning.

Specialist’s Сomment

Iryna Kladko, the marketing specialist of Shaden Group:

—Ukraine is interesting for foreigners because of the intensive growth of the commercial estate market. The Western companies are interested in investing money into the perspective directions, one of which is cleaning.

The perfect variant is, when the foreign companies’ appearance in Ukraine will lead to the reducing of cleaning service costs, because of investing a considerable amount of money. However each company, which enters the Ukrainian market, will have a common problem – the absence of qualified staff.

As to the popularity of cleaning in Ukraine, I can tell you, that this service is mostly essential in Kiev and other big cities. The lowest demand on this service is in the West Ukraine. It’s cause by two reasons: because of the distinctive mentality of local population – they prefer to clean just by themselves, and because of the absence of big real estate objects.

Olga Tarasenko, the director of Svit Chistoty Ukraine Ltd.:

—When speaking about the perspectives of cleaning development in Ukraine, I’d like to highlight the fact that the main players on the market are clearly seen, and the small players don’t want to leave it. But the market of equipment and support consumables for cleaning is just slightly widening, and the providers, which are able to offer the whole list of the goods to the customers, will appear.

The cleaning in Ukraine slightly differs from those, which the Europeans are used to, because the native companies feel here better than the foreign ones, which don’t know the specificity of working with Ukrainian employees as well. That’s why our market is attractive for Russian operators.

The cleaning market mostly depends on new objects construction, opening of new trade centers, shops, offices etc. That’s why its popularity directly depends on the big cities as Kiev, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkiv. The cleaning services are also presented in Odessa, Lvov and Zaporozhye.

Anna Kovalchuk, PR-manager of Inter Hold Management Ltd.:

—The Ukrainian market of cleaning services has considerably widened for the last years, correspondently the demand on professional cleaning equipment and chemicals has grown. The changes are caused by the two factors. First of all, to create a design of premise lots of specific floor and wall coverings, trimming materials are use. They are supposes to be cleaned individually and to be taken care of really carefully. Otherwise they can be easily spoilt.

Second of all, the cleaning staff is interested in cleaning effectively. That’s why the producers of cleaning equipment offer different kinds of cleaning technique: floor-polishers, floor-cleaners, washing vacuum cleaners, sweeping machines, steam-cleaners, and their details, including nozzles, brushes, filters. The market is satiated with different washing chemicals.

Maksim Vinnik, the manager of sales department and development of Chistuy Svet Ltd.:

—In the big cities cleaning of commercial estate is especially popular, because the clients want to get the professional service first of all. Besides, it’s relevant to say, that the clients, which have their own cleaning department, have a lack of staff.

During the last time it’s economically expedient to place the industrial objects in the areas, which are far away from the cities and towns. Because of the low value of the land and comparatively low salaries, the owners of the industrial objects increase the profitability of business, correspondently the producers can get their production for fewer prices. But the enterprises have some difficulties with the choosing and educating the cleaning staff.

Aleksey Postonogov, the manager of the cleaning companies group Actual-Service:

—The cleaning companies, which do the services for cleaning the premises and territories, replace their own cleaning department more actively. The outsourcing of cleaning is really prestigious for the managers of organizations.

However, it never goes without difficulties. The main problem, which appears before the participants of Ukrainian cleaning market, is a lack of staff, especially at the lower positions. The other problem, which we have to deal with, is an aspiration of the estate owner to give each meter of their property for rent. It causes the increasing of the technique and staff, so the cleaning becomes more expensive.

Vladimir Bulatov, the deputy director of Master Clean:

—Depending on the industrial cycle and requirements of the client, the cleaning company does the works in the following modes: everyday, support, general, single and specialized cleaning.

The everyday mode means the providing of steady fulfillment of cleaning jobs in accordance with the technology of their fulfillment and schedule.

The support mode includes the works, which are done from time to time, depending on the necessity. It may be the unpredictable pollution of dirt, which accumulates is certain places for small periods of time. The processing is done according to the separate schedule.

The general cleaning is such a work mode, when the premises are cleaned more carefully with using of more technical recourses, chemistry, and time.

The schedule of general cleaning is discussed with the customer. It can be once a week, or once in two weeks, in a month or in a season.

The single job is done regularly (single time), if the customer needs it. This kind of works needs a separate treaty and is paid separately. The spectrum of single works is wide, the main of those are: cleaning of premises after construction, washing of facades of big areas, dry cleaning of textile surfaces (upholstered furniture, carpet etc.), disinfection of swimming pools, bathrooms etc.

The specialized works means washing and cleaning of vertical surfaces, non-rusting elements of interior, high-rise washing of facades (glass, metal, granite etc.).

Source: “Torgovuj Expert”

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