WICan expands warehousing, targets islandwide expansion
Published:Tuesday | March 20, 2018 | 12:00 AM
Placed in a market where consumers, in the main, prefer to use the cheapest products for cleaning, St James firm WICan Supply and Services Ltd is trying to grow market share based on quality and environmental values.
Richard Dennis, managing director of the company, is executing a strategy which will see an outlet in every parish in the medium term. The company is also expanding warehouse capacity this year.
Dennis told the Financial Gleaner: "We are looking to invest in our warehouse facility to help us to satisfy the demand for our products, meet the regulatory requirements and to fulfil our vision of having one WICan retail outlet in every parish."
He did not disclose the level of investment involved.
Currently, WICan has three main branches - its head office at St Claver's Avenue, Montego Bay, St James; Carib Arcade, Ocho Rios, St Ann; and Beckford Street, Savanna-la-Mar, West-moreland. The company employs 20 people.
Dennis describes the company's top business lines as overnight deep cleaning of kitchen exhaust systems, extractor hood filters and stove lines. Janitorial services include mold/mildew removal, sofa and motor vehicle cleaning; and specialty cleaning, including toilet bowl cleaning.
The managing director told the Financial Gleaner that the company's greatest challenge is that more persons prefer to buy cheaper products.
"The recommendations have been for us to reduce our prices while keeping the product quality standard. Manufacture costs prevent this from happening. Therefore, we compete with other vendors who sell watered-down cleaning chemicals. We, therefore, try to use the quality of our products in our marketing," Dennis said.
Principal shareholders in WICan are Richard Dennis, a Jamaican, and Indra Kissoon, a Canadian.
WICan Supply and Services entered the market as West Indies Canada over 20 years ago. The company started by offering laundry and housekeeping chemicals to the hotel industry.
As time progressed, the company started offering cleaning services and manufacturing of its own products for use for in cleaning jobs.
In 2011, WICan Supply changed ownership and became a 30 per cent Jamaican-owned and operated company. The name changed to WICan Supply & Services Limited and was re-branded as a company that offers services and products
Dennis states that "over 80 per cent of the products sold today are manufactured by the company. We are proud to have our products listed as 'Jamaican made'.
He says the company is also trying to overcome a culture of do-it-yourself in Jamaica.
"Our greatest challenge as it regards our services is convincing persons why they should contract our services as opposed to doing it on their own. Many hotels have their own housekeeping departments. However, most housekeeping staff are not trained to operate our heavy-duty machinery, nor are they familiar with the deep-cleaning processes that we offer," Dennis said.
He said that while WICan has challenges with working capital, "as we are labour-intensive and the ability to pay our workers as businesses outsource their cleaning services can be difficult. We also lose our trained and experienced employees to the hotels as the sector expands and the demand for experience and trained workers increases".
Dennis said "most commercial entities are opting to outsource their janitorial department. However, residential cleaning services is still a growing market, which we hope to capture in the years to come."
He said WICan's main competitors are limited in regard to product or service offerings. "We offer a one-stop approach to cleaning by manufacturing, retailing and providing service. The fact that we manufacture our own products and have over 14 different programme offerings has given us a slight boost to be the better choice."
Dennis said the company's growth target for 2018 is 16 per cent over 2017. Turnover for 2017 was $31.7 million, while in 2016 it was $42 million.
He said: "We have started using specific marketing campaigns to achieve this growth with evident results as of December 2017. Our focus is to push select products and services over the period of a quarter. By independently boosting these products and services, we manage to increase product and service awareness and value, thus boosting sales."
"In addition," he said, "we try to align all our marketing tools by focusing on the same topics across the board - on our weekly radio programme, our monthly newsletter, and our social media pages."
He said that for 2018, WICan will be participating in more expos and select sponsorship opportunities "that will help us to get more exposure. For instance, we will be at Expo Jamaica 2018".