It may seem a little strange at first but even services can be exports, actually even under very favourable terms. Hondl Global Services, a. s. (HGS) from Kladno, Czech Republic, has been able to sell cleaning in this manner together with comprehensive property administration and maintenance. And their colleagues from Slovakia and Poland also realised that not only facility management is a good export item. Eventually, their mutual cooperation resulted in the formation of a business consortium called Central Europe Janitorial Services (CEJS).

It boasts not only a comprehensive range of services and excellent know-how but also very strong financial and personnel resources. It consists of three companies where each of the above countries is represented by one company. In Poland, it is ProCleaner, a company with more than 1,500 employees and a turnover of EUR 2.18m. In Slovakia, it is Slovclean with an annual turnover of EUR 11.9m. The company has 150 permanent employees. The Czech Republic is represented in the consortium by Hondl Global Services, a. s. with more than 800 employees and a turnover of EUR 5.5m.

CEJS can handle transnational giants

The consortium was originally established to participate in a tender for cleaning and operating management to be awarded as a giant contract for the entire Central Europe. “Thanks to our excellent references and our previous work results, we won the Central European contract and it has been underway since the beginning of September 2017. We take care of halls with a total area of 2.3 million square metres and on top of that we also maintain about half a million square metres of outdoor areas. However, the results have already shown that we are very successful at implementing processes and it will definitely not be a problem to offer our services to other companies of a similar type,” Ing. Jiří Hondl said.

When normal standards are not enough

Compliance with European standards is a matter of course for the CEJS consortium. Its management duly ensures that every employee completes appropriate training – ranging from occupational safety, fire prevention, work at heights to a number of other special certificates. And since the aim of CEJS is to always offer something extra, regular standards confirmed by the relevant ISO certificates are not even close to being enough.

“Quality work comes first for us and our clients. However, we are happy to add various specialised activities to our portfolio that may sometimes make the difference between winning and losing an entire contract. After some time, they become standards that customers usually fully appreciate only once a problem arises,” Hondl said with a smile and added that the most popular benefits included immediate response to emergencies and the possibility to quickly deploy CEJS workforce directly in the customers’ companies. It goes without saying that this includes the introduction of innovations, new technologies, machines and chemicals, as well as careful cost monitoring and resolution of any non-standard situations.

Czech Republic – Poland – Slovakia…

It is not a problem for CEJS to commence work for a single customer in all countries at once or start work gradually. The services ordered can be the same for all countries or special requirements may be defined for each country and even for each managed facility separately. “We plan to offer our entire portfolio in other neighbouring countries in the future because it cannot be ruled out that we will happen to operate in Germany, Hungary or another country as part of a different tender,” Jiří Hondl said, already thinking about the future development of the company and the consortium.

 

More information at www.hgs.cz and www.cejs.eu