The Green P’s

By Brian Clark. Janitech Australasia

Contract cleaning, as an industry, is in a growth phase. Unfortunately, the growth is

represented by increase in market size, rather than increases in profitability.

Currently in Australia there are over 7000 competing firms, mostly headed by people
with no formal training in business and management. Furthermore, the barriers to
entry to the contract cleaning industry are almost non-existent, with only basic skill
requirements, no licensing and low start up capital required.

The combination of these factors has seen fierce competition based solely on price.
The result has been falling standards, a perceived lack of differentiation between
companies and a diminished perception of the professionalism for the industry as a
whole from the perspective of it’s customer base. The cleaning industry fails in it’s
ability to market itself effectively and provide real differentiation for it’s customers.

Marketing p’s

There are, arguably, seven basic elements of marketing activity that can be utilised
in the generation of sales for a product or service. They include

Product (Offering the right product or service),

Price (which is linked to the customer’s perception of value);

Place (how the product gets to the customers);

Promotion (How we communicate with the customer);

Participants (The interaction between a firms employees and the customer);

Physical Evidence (crucial for a service business);

Process (The things you do that affect the customer).

Any combination of these elements in a marketing strategy is called the marketing

mix. The marketing mix should incorporate as many of the ‘P’s as possible to reflect
and augment your corporate strategy. Currently, it could be argued that the contract
cleaning industry utilises only 2 or 3 ‘P’s as Price is the predominant strategy. All this
changes with Green Cleaning.

Major property owners worldwide are recognising the environmental and financial
benefits of green. Green Cleaning is a real opportunity for the contractor to
determine strategies to maximise differentiation, to sideline the competition by
changing the rules, to increase margins and improve the overall standing of their
business. Green is not so much about cleaning as it is about process. The contractor
is integral to the ongoing effectiveness and success of a green building program and
the smart ones will become the driver of innovation.

Green Cleaning adds another ‘P’ to the marketing program, P for PLANET (See Fig 1).
This ‘P’ becomes central to the development and implementation of business and
marketing strategies and enables the contractor to utilise and intertwine the other 7
P’s in developing a program and an offering that is irresistible to a correctly targeted
and important customer group.

Figure 1: Green ‘P’s for cleaning Contractors. P for Planet is the additional P and becomes the central plank of
a green marketing strategy. The additional P's of Passion and Purpose are more descriptive of implementation
and focus.
With P for Planet as the central plank of your marketing mix, P for Price becomes less
relevant when taken in context with the power of your overall offering. With Green,
your Product offering is a key plank of your green credentials. If the product is right,
the remaining ‘P’s come into play.

Processes that you offer within the green program must reflect your overall
commitment to, and understanding of, the implementation of green. ‘P’ for
participants is powerful because, for green programs to work, the contractor and
their staff are brought into direct contact with and become part of the daily life of the
building tenants and users. The participants must be involved through intensive and
ongoing training, communication, involvement (team development), and, pen
ultimately, entwinement with the building community.

The definition of Place changes somewhat, because the contractor and the customer
will benefit from their proximity to the building and the proximity of suppliers. The
minimisation of energy in transportation of employees and supplies to maintain the
building will have a major impact on energy usage, carbon generated and the
buildings environmental footprint.
The Physical evidence is not simply how clean the building is, but a holistic validation
of the impact of the green strategies that the contractor puts in place in the building.
This P is one which is driven by, and drives innovation, and innovation with
measurable outcomes, is a key point of difference from a competitor.

Green also opens up levels of sophistication and specialisation for a contractor. Fig 2
illustrates the levels of risk and return with three levels of differentiation in green
cleaning.

Figure 2: Specialisation in green cleaning carries inherent risks, especially if you rush to market before the
customers are ready. The more the specialisation, the more complex the relationship becomes, the higher the
potential return and increases the difficultly of entry by ‘me-too’ competitors.
Understanding Green and it’s impact on a building and it’s occupants and the overall
life-cycle costing of the building changes the ball park totally in the cleaning game.
Your objectives change from providing a building that looks clean to a complex inter-
relationship of factors that impact the environment and the carbon footprint of your
customer. These outcomes include, but are not limited to:

• Minimising life-cycles costs of building and their components

• Maximising life cycle of the building and component
• Reducing resource consumption
• Reducing resource waste
• Increasing system efficiency
• Emphasis on source and waste reduction
• Creating healthy environments for building users
• Creating a good working environment….
Green has the potential to revolutionise the contract cleaning industry in broad areas
of the market, but only for the companies that embrace it as a central plank of their
corporate strategy. However, here’s where the two extra ‘P’s, Passion and Purpose
come into play. If you don’t have a Purpose in your program, or treat green as a
passing fad, and if your people don’t have the Passion to drive it forward, then the
strategy will fail. Green is for the long haul and short haul companies will be left
behind with the pack.

If you wish to discuss Green Cleaning further or would like a presentation for your
management group, Brian Clark can be contacted on janitech@janitech.com.au.