Business surgery: Gleem

Year established: 2014

Where the company is based: Lawrence Hill

Sector: Cleaning

Number of staff: 7 in the office, 60 cleaners

Owner: Joseph Edwards

Key clients: Hundreds of home owners, and a growing number of offices 

The company

Gleem is a high quality cleaning company based in Bristol that works with both domestic clients and corporate customers such as Michael Kors, Mothercare and Tesla. 

It ‘exists to empower people to take pride in the work they perform’, starting with cleaning, an industry worth over £6 billion per year in the UK.

Gleem aims to provide a superior service by treating staff well and committing to pay its cleaners above the living wage. This helps to develop staff who are reliable, dedicated, engaged and hard working.

The quality of its service has built Gleem a reputation. It has seen them grow from a £200 start-up budget, to the current business, turning over more than £620k annually, in just two years.

The Challenge

What is our best option for scaling and diversifying the business?  

We have a number of options: expand geographically? Increase the number of services we offer domestic customers (for example gardening services), or focus on the commercial side of the business and aim to offer full facilities management?

Or should we do one thing and do it well: offer cleaning services in Bristol. 

How should we decipher which is the best option for the future (and scalability) of the business? 

FEEDBACK

Liz Sands, Director at Brave

One of the key things to consider here is whether diversification is the right strategy for your cleaning business.

Increasing the number of services you offer may enable you to sell more services to your existing customers and move into new markets. But diversification may not be advisable unless your main line of business is profitable and well established.

Taking a business to the next level is a huge challenge and you’ve got to be careful that you don’t take your eye of the ball when diversifying. This could compromise both the quality and reputation of your core service.

It’s therefore vital that you research new markets before diversifying and check out the competition and potential customers in geographic areas that you are looking to expand into. Also consider whether you have the staff and infrastructure to cope with such expansion.

Whether you decide to concentrate on the domestic or commercial side of the business will likely depend on how profitable they are.

But before you do anything, make sure you seek expert advice from a professional advisor who has experience in helping growth businesses. The West of England Growth Hub – www.wearegrowth.co.uk – is a good place to look for a suitable growth service. 

Stephen Burnside, partner at Burnside Chartered Accountants 

It is always crucial to understand what has brought success to date.  It is clear that quality and reliability are some of the key factors here.  Within this there will be a myriad of procedures, checks and controls that have been evolved by the management team. 

It is worth analysing the working practices and recording them.  From this document it is quite likely that other services will be identified that would easily fit into these procedures.  With a growing client base why not offer other services and upsell to existing clients in the first instance?It is likely that this will develop into a number of different upsell services and as long as the key qualities can be maintained this should become as successful as the current core area of cleaning. 

In time it may be worth considering franchising the operation into new geographical areas.  Always refer back to ‘winning formulae’ though and ensure that you continue to adhere to the successful formula.

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