In Branschnytt issue 9 we have made a report at Hembry AB where we interviewed founder and CEO Axel Björland about their growth journey. Here you as a reader get to know Axel's thoughts on success factors in the business and how he sees the cleaning industry in the future.
What is your reasoning around digitalization, why is crucial in the success of a business and on which How has it been crucial for you at Hembry?
There are relatively few things a company can do to stand out in the cleaning industry, as the services delivered are similar to those of its peers. This is where digitalization comes in. The efficiencies that can be achieved can provide great competitive advantages. The more we as a company digitize our processes, the more we can relieve our back office staff and thus generate a higher profit margin, which in turn allows us to invest more in growth and achieve our high goals, says Axel.
"Manual and repetitive tasks steal time and money"
Digitalization is also the basis for automation and simplification. If a company has not taken the step yet or does not have a plan for digitization going forward, it will be challenging to maintain its market share. Hembry aims to become one of the largest players in the market and we are convinced that digitization has a crucial role in achieving our growth goals, says Axel.
Today, 90 % of our business comes through our website, making it our largest sales channel. We are actively working to drive traffic to the website, where in a few steps our customers can do both quote request and booking. All information related to the customer's cleaning assignment is automatically sent to Tengella, where we scheduler and invoices. The recipe for success for us in digital channels has been that we have managed to meet customer needs through our website's information and forms, which make the website visitor feel safe to test our service.
How do you think Tengella has contributed to is the digitalization journey?
We have digitized all parts of the business to varying degrees. We focused on day-to-day operations early on and decided to invest in Tengella already in year 2.
Tengellas report have helped us visualize what we need to optimize both in the short and long term. We work with these reports on a regular basis to ensure that our operations are developing in line with our operational objectives. These simple and summarized report formats clarify, for example, how much travel time, training time or unbooked time our staff have, so we can work actively to minimize non-chargeable time.
Now that you have been operating the system for a while, what other features of Tengella have mainly helped you to further develop your business, and in what way?
In particular, Tengella has streamlined invoicing and wage work! We went from working manually in a proprietary solution, where payroll and invoicing took about 20 hours per month. Today, the same work takes only 1-2 hours per month. With the service bureau's automatic deduction of invoices from the bank account, our accounts receivable have also been simplified, while we have gained a much smoother handling of RUT and ROT deductions. In addition, Tengella's travel time calculation via Google Maps has been very useful for our area managers. With it, we can add the correct travel time to all employees' schedules with one click, which is fantastic. It has saved us several hours compared to before," says Axel.
How do you see the market and the development of industry going forward, and how will you at Hembry respond to this?
The recession has slowed our growth somewhat this year, and this looks set to continue next year. This makes it more difficult to both retain existing customers and win new ones. However, we are still positive about growth in the coming years.
In 2023 we have managed to grow by 40 % and according to our forecasts we should be able to see the same growth in 2024. If you are going to run a company, you have to try to be resilient and face challenges. We have decided that the current market situation should not hinder the company's growth plans, so we will continue to invest in efficiency and growth. Otherwise, development will come to a standstill," says Axel. This also includes digital development. Competitive differences in the industry will become more pronounced in the coming years, especially with the advent of AI.
In the past, most cleaning companies have delivered the same service in a similar way, as mentioned above. In the future, the companies that are more digitized will run past, which will make it difficult for some companies to keep up. As I said, competition is getting tougher and therefore part of our growth strategy going forward is to acquire other service companies," Axel concludes.
"Tengella has given us good control over the operational challenges facing the company, which has enabled focused and targeted business development."