Interview with Federico Girelli, CEO of Cleanapp, an application that helps you in hotel management.
The hotel industry has been particularly affected by these last pandemic periods. New decrees and restrictions have complicated the life of the managers of these structures, as if it was not stressful enough. How do they keep doing this? Well there is an answer, thanks to the help of technology. If the work of coordination and organization inside the hotels had long and boring working times before now it seems that things have changed. Cleanapp took charge of giving life to this reality. Thanks to this app you can increase the productivity of your structure thanks to a fluid and immediate communication. A smart and fast way to organize staff and tasks that will surely save time and especially money.
What is Cleanapp?
Cleanapp was born with a precise objective: to make a change to the classic management methods of a hotel in order to make them more efficient and faster. All of this obviously cannot be separated from technology. Thanks to the new technologies Cleanapp offers an Operation Management platform that allows to digitize all the daily activities that take part in the life of a hotel. You can monitor and track all tasks for each area and department in your facility using one simple platform.
To whom is addressed?
Cleanapp is designed by professionals in the field of hospitality for those who want to innovate the way to manage and coordinate operations within their accommodation:
- For hotels: allows you to manage all aspects of cleaning and maintenance of the rooms and spaces offered to the public, without wasting time.
- For hotel chains: offers a housekeeping software that allows you to monitor different facilities using the same app.
- Outsourcing company: provides a Digital Room Manager that coordinates the work of employees in order to increase the services offered.
- Bed and Breakfast: with the cloud dashboard you can have full control of the status of each room and modify it in case you need some kind of maintenance work.
- Holiday homes: you can guarantee a perfect cleaning and sanitization of the accommodation through a certification issued directly by the company.
If you also manage one of the activities listed above and are curious about this service, read the interview with Federico Girelli, CEO of Cleanapp.
Hello Federico, nice to meet you and thank you for your time. Tell us more about this beautiful project
First of all thanks to you for the dedicated space. Cleanapp is the smart and digital solution to optimize facility management, within accommodation facilities and beyond. Facility management means all the “operations” that are involved in the management of a building, if we think for example to a hotel: cleaning, maintenance, staff coordination , etc… In short, all that is “hidden” to the end user but very important to offer a level of service.
How and when was the idea of Cleanapp born?
I am a hotelier, and I am confronted every day with problems due to an “analog” management of the aspects of Facility management, whose communications were via whatsapp, phone calls, leaflets… with consequent losses of time and various disservices. From there came the idea of creating a simpler and more immediate digital tool, which would allow a faster and traced management of these operational functions.
How long did it take to shape the project?
The project has lived and is experiencing 3 different phases: the first phase, which I would call artisan, where the instrument was simply used within my structure. Then, about two years ago, I met my current partners, and talking to them about the advantages that the tool was bringing me, we decided to bring the platform to market, and see what kind of feedback it had.
The third phase, the current one, defined as development, where based on the feedback obtained from customers we are further developing the platform, going in the direction of an integrated and vertical business intelligence on the issues of facility and property management.
Together with these developments, we are continuing to “spread” Cleanapp on the market, opening up to sectors different from “pure” hospitality.
How is the market responding?
I’d say very well. Surely our main target, that is the tourist facilities, during the covid has suffered a bad blow, and this unfortunately has slowed down also our growth. At the same time, however, emphasis has been placed on issues such as the control of procedures and digitisation, which are issues that are very important to us and within which we operate. There is now an explosion of interest in solutions like Cleanapp that digitize and simplify the work, then are the customers themselves who are rewarding us by continuing to use our platform also advising it.
How important is digitization in the working world? Where are we in Italy?
Digitalisation is now fundamental, it is easy to see how the world of work and the world in general is changing. Surely the Covid has also created greater awareness on this aspect, making people aware of the theme, even those who were initially averse to the idea.
In Italy we are certainly behind other countries, but also thanks to the PNRR and current government policies, it is easy to predict a strong digitalization in the near future, also in the Italian productive and entrepreneurial fabric, made up of many small businesses. Everyone is realizing that this is a necessary evolution and is beginning to appreciate the benefits.
How did you launch your project?
In the promotion and launch of our project, we started “on tiptoe” and then we gradually accelerated, based on the market response. Unfortunately or fortunately, we did not believe and we could not implement a very invasive promotion policy, so we moved in a logic of “trial and error” refining more and more products and strategies. Net of this, we move on two different and combined channels:
a marketing approach tendentially “full digital”, also thanks to the fact that our product does not need any kind of physical presence, on the other hand the presence in interesting events and fairs that allow us to create brand awareness and to which we always connect a post event “digital queue”.
Future plans?
In 2022, we will continue product development towards deeper and more integrated business intelligence. We also look with interest at the issue of the Internet of things, for monitoring also energy consumption and structural costs. On a commercial level, we want to expand in the retail and hospital sector and try to expand the business abroad, through some partners with whom we are talking. You know, keep running!
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