Forsyth’s Cleaning Saga Back in April Mitie appointed Bob Forsyth, long term Security MD, to also head up its cleaning business, Environmental +. After his first six months in the role CHT travelled up to London Bridge to get Forsyth’s first impressions of the cleaning industry and his own plans for taking Mitie back to the very pinnacle of the sector A jovial, outgoing man, Bob Forsyth has worked in the service industry for 20 years. After starting out as a front line security officer Forsyth has risen through the ranks and now heads up the two largest operations at one of the leading facilities management companies in the country. Environmental + is one of the largest cleaning businesses in Britain, responsible for cleaning everything from banks to shops, world-famous hospitals and international airports. The cleaning business is commercially central to Mitie – generating circa £400 million in revenues every year. For this reason they have entrusted Environmental + to Forsyth, who has well over a decade’s experience working with Mitie’s security business (and will remain MD) and all parties expect him to replicate his success in that arena, in his new sphere. DRIVING EFFICIENCY Cleaning and security are Mitie’s two largest businesses by number of staff. With around 12,000 employees working in security and 33,000 in cleaning, Forsyth is responsible for well over 40,000 people. But why cleaning and security? Why after five years of running the latter is Forsyth taking over the former? “Both businesses have a lot of similarities and are largely people centric so can 22 CLEANING HYGIENE TODAY space we are working in. Hospitals worry about patient care and infections. Shopping centres are concerned with the impression their customers get of the premises. Different locations need different products and different attitudes.” FEATURE INTERVIEW OCTOBER 2015 The cleaning business is commercially central to Mitie – generating circa £400 million in revenues every year.” be bundled together” Forsyth explains. “The back office services for both can be streamlined, allowing us to provide a more consistent and productive service. “On top of this we can utilise a lot of our intellectual property from security to help modernise our cleaning offer. In addition to this both security and cleaning are very people orientated, they are extremely interactive.” Of course there has been a slight change of mindset and an adjustment to a new industry. Forsyth acknowledges that his understanding of the sector is developing and he is having to consider the complexities of the service delivery, and start to work on the longer term strategy and vision for the business due to the different drivers behind the two services. “The scale of the challenges are different than in the security sector which is risk based; the cleaning sector has some interesting variables around specification and standard of delivery with more flexible approaches vs the security sector which is much more integrated with technology and off-site management for example.” “We have to vary our offerings depending on the
Cleaning Hygiene Today October 2015
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