By Mike Walls
ONE of Jani-King Australasia’s most respected managers taken on the role of NSW Regional Manager based at Norwest.
Steve Phillips, 48, has been with Jani-King for over 10 years and has worked between New Zealand and Australia, and is now responsible for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and the Northern Territory.
He replaces Michael Yusiw in taking over NSW. He says he looking forward to the regional responsibilities and the opportunities for the iconic cleaning brand.
Steve spoke exclusively to WSBA about his responsibilities and new role.
Steve, you have been appointed with specific brief. Can you describe what that brief is?
For me, business success is about forward planning, quantifying the market, and seizing competitive advantage. With a little over one% of a 1.3b market, our intention is to grow this by delivering world class services via our dedicated franchise group, skilled operations teams, sales professionals and strongly forged strategic alliances.
With cost reducing bundled service deliveries, we are well poised to re-position ourselves as a market leader in provision of services to Western Sydney businesses.
What you see as the benefits of being located in Sydney’s west, Norwest specifically?
Western Sydney is not only one of the largest and diverse economies in Australia, but also one of the fastest growing. With about one third of the total number of businesses in the Greater Sydney Metropolitan area, strategically it made sense for us to position our regional operations amongst major commercial centres including Parramatta, Norwest and Penrith.
Jani King is a leader in its field but seems to have suffered from an image problem over the last decade. What are your plans to improve this situation?
The image problem you refer to maybe can be more succinctly described as "a lack of visibility in the market". By optimizing our underlying processes, and understanding better the needs of our customers in a competitive environment, we will align ourselves with businesses that share our understanding of true service delivery.
Do you have any plans to engage the business sector of western Sydney if so, what are they?
We have recently joined the Sydney Hills Business Chamber, along with establishing a relationship with Hills Shire City Council Management. Part of our strategic planning includes sponsorship of a charity in a Global sense (think global act local), that will provide community goodwill and further exposure to our brand. I also intend to attend (where possible) all networking events made available via our associations.
What role does technology play in the future of the cleaning industry?
The general perception of the commercial cleaning industry is "labour intensive and cheap". As one of the world’s most successful franchisors, we have had to keep abreast of technological advances to provide efficiencies for our franchisees in an extremely competitive market. For example, in hospitality our franchise operators have been able to maintain five star service levels, whilst providing savings to our clients in excess of 10%. Internally, we have cloud based audit and reporting systems that can provide real time feedback to clients and in medical and aged care markets - Infection Control Technology that is way ahead of industry standards.
What core elements have led to the success of JC?
As clichéd as this may sound, our biggest asset is our people. We have dedicated specialists in our offices, that provide daily feedback and support to both our franchisees and clients, that far exceeds the reactive nature of the commercial cleaning industry in general.
