Can you please share with us your current position/job and profile of the organization you work for? Owner / managing director of Green Cleaning Laundry in Hungary and co-owner of another commercial laundry in Romania
Green Cleaning is a laundry serving the hospitality sector, with a daily capacity of ca 6 tons, based on washer extractor technology. Services include cleaning all kind of textile within a hotel, restaurant, like bedlinen, towels, tablecloths, wellness products, F&B textile, workwear or curtains.
Our main focus is becoming a strategic partner for hotels aiming 5-star customer ratings and sustainable operation. Our main differentiating factors include:
- 20+ years experience in hospitality laundry sector
- 170+ B2B partners from small boutique hotels to large chains
- 75%+ cover for Hungary, daily delivery
- 24 / 48 hours turnaround time
- ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification guarantee quality and sustainability
2. In which countries and market sectors of Professional Textile Care did you work and did you gained experiences?
In the past 20+ years I gained experience in both Hungary and Romania, in serving B2B partners in the hospitality sector (Textile Services), including laundry and rental textile as well.
3. Could you please describe the most important characteristics and trends of the current PTC markets in terms of customer/market demand characteristics and trends?
Our customers are hotels, from smaller boutique hotels to larger chains. After Covid the market became price-sensitive and currently, because of the geopolitical situation, low level of consumption, and disruptions in tourism, it is still the most significant characteristics. Price is the deciding factor for selecting a laundry partner.
Also, hotels typically save not just on the laundry costs, but also on the textile cost – they buy lower quality bed linen (smaller size, lighter in weight) to further reduce laundry costs (in Hungary pricing is typically based on washed kg). It is not unusual that a hotel has less than 3-times stock and required 24 hours turnaround service from the laundry.
Second most important factor is the quality of ironing, when selecting a laundry partner.
4. What do you see as the most important success factors for todays PTC companies?
Even though there is a strong pressure on lowering prices, but on the long term only laundries will survive, who stick to high quality services.
Meaning, to stay in competition it is rather cost-decrease that should be the main focus of successful laundries. That also includes cost-types that are not obvious but have a great impact: for example labour cost also includes the cost of replacement or training of new employess, that can be reduced by rather focusing on motivating existing employees, keeping a skilled workforce.
Also, focus should be on optimal production planning and controlling, that can result in quicker service times, less consumption of energy, detergents and other resources.
5. What are your organization objectives and when would you consider your organization to be successful?
Laundry is a service. A service is successful if the customer is happy. Our main goal is to ensure those hotels who work with us, are long-term partners with continued satisfaction. We want to be the laundry partner that is known for a reliable, good quality service. Clean linen is always delivered on time, in good quality and expected quantity. That we can grow together with our partners
6. What do you consider the most important future demands of clients in PTC markets?
Good quality service (no stains, superb ironing quality) for low prices.
As in our understanding good quality laundry service starts with quality textiles and well educated HK personnel, we also aim to have an impact on other processes of the housekeeping: test-wash of textile before purchasing, training of HK personnel.
7. What are key issues for the PTC companies to fulfill future demands of clients and PTC markets?
Feeling the price-pressure daily can be exhausting for laundries – and those without a development plan might give in to this pressure, that can result in less quality on longer time.
Key is to manage price pressure and focus on quality for the long term win.
Other key issue is to ensure stability of operation: electricity, gas and other infrastructure contracts in place, as much self-sustainable as possible, trained workforce / internal trainings available.
8. How important is sustainability / circularity for your current business performance and what do you do to improve your performance as an organization?
Sustainability is not an advantage, laundries as service partners are not selected based on how sustainable their technology and operation are. Only advantage is if sustainability means lower cost level for the same quality.
Sustainability for the laundry is important as it is a mean to manage costs (like re-use / re-cycle of energy). In Hungary, solar panel and other renewable energy sources are still expensive investment with over 20 years ROI.
One other opportunity is to increase rental textile services, as rental textile is a more sustainable choice for hotels and better for the laundry operation as well (homogeneous production, optimal batch size, high quality textile, longer lifecycles).
9. Do you see sustainability as an important driver for (new) business or as a factor for saving costs?
Saving costs only
10. Do you see technical innovation as a key factor to enhance your business performance, and what technologies are essential to provide sustainable and profitable PTC services in the future?
The main goal for innovation is the reduction of resources (less energy consumption) and more productivity – while keeping the quality levels. This includes eg. automation of feeding / folding, applying machines with less energy consumptions.
11. What do you see as the most important innovations of the (near) future and how do you believe these innovations will change the way the industry operates?
We do not expect a really disruptive new technology in the near future. The application of robotics is for Hungarian companies still far away yet.
Communication and usage of AI is developing faster, but we are still focusing on such innovation that helps reducing the labor intensive tasks.
Please note, that in Hungary the scale is different. It is a small country size, laundries have typically small plant sizes. Laundry serving hotel sector and with tunnel washer, there are only 1-2 plants in Hungary!
12. According to many publications, a transformation of the PTC industry towards more customer and IT driven processing, is seen as essential to be successful in the future. What is your policy to adapt your business/service model to changing market demands?
Customer focus was and is in the center of our focus for the past 20+ years. Our service is based on personal relations, therefore regular stakeholder management in different levels is scheduled. Quarterly CEO level meetings to discuss customer experience, trends and expectations are organized. Yearly HK-manager level customer satisfaction surveys are scheduled.
13. We have seen an enormous increase in scale of operation of PTC companies. Do you see there will be attractive opportunities also for the more smaller companies and what is needed for small companies to be successful?
Scale of operation is required to ensure automation and optimization is applied. In Hungary however there is a limit to growth due to the scale of the whole country. Also, limiting factor is the un-availability of financial funding for large investmens. As said, 95%+ of hospitality laundries operate on washer extractor technology, typical size is 32-50 kg capacity washers.
14. How do you feel the PTC industry can take more market share in the markets of textile cleaning, compared to domestic washing?
In my experience, customers (both B2C and B2B) do not have knowledge of TCO (total cost of ownership). For the industry to gain market share compared to domestic washing, it requires comprehensive and market-level educative programs. This is far greater than what one individual company can achieve. Although there are pioneers with this mission, national and international organization certainly can support this effort.
15. What do you see as major opportunities for the professional laundry and cleaning industry for the longer term future?
Resources are limited (globally) – fiber for textile production, fresh water, electricity and gas. The more scarce they become, the more focus is on ensuring long lifecycles, limited usage. This also means the professional cleaning will become the more sustainable and preferred option. But again, that needs proper customer education as well.
16. What do you see as major threats for the PTC industry in the coming years?
Currently the major threat is the global geopolitical situation, wars, unstable environment and broken supply chains, restricted trade-routes and interrupted flow of workforce. A war is also seriously impacting tourism. Economically it is very uncertain times with rising unemployment and more and more expensive financing options. Many companies delay financial decisions, innovation slows down. Only a few years after Covid, the middle-class in many countries has no significant reserves, therefore its buying power is limited – no travel, no convenience-based services. In Hungary the internal tourism is also decreasing.
In summary, decreasing demand and interrupted supply chains have the biggest impact in the near future.
17. What would you say industry (inter-)national associations should do to support the PTC industry professionally, now and in the future?
In summary, the position, acceptance and level of appreciation of the industry should be more visible and strong. Than includes lobby activity at governments, general attractiveness among workforce, trainee programs and education, ecosystem of further providers specialized for the laundry industry: for example in Hungary we lack financing, leasing of production equipment, proper insurance opportunities, trainings, social communication.
18. What is your vision on the future perspective of the industry?
Concentrated production and scaling of laundry facilities is needed to successfully implement automation and thus laundries will cover larger areas (geographically)
19. What is your key-message to your professional PTC colleagues for now and in the future?
Wish lot of perseverance!
Claudiu Ciarnau, owner of Green Cleaning laundry
