Outsourcing or in-house?
Across North America, provision of janitorial and cleaning services predominantly occurs in-house. In a 2020 survey of facility managers, just over 26 percent of respondents stated that they outsource cleaning and maintenance, compared to 46 percent of respondents who stated that outsourcing is simply not an option. It is most common for organizations who require facility management to employ less than ten full-time equivalent (FTE) employees in their cleaning/ maintenance department. Overall, just under 61 percent of relevant organizations employ less than 50 FTE for cleaning and maintenance and just over 65 percent have 20 or less buildings to take care of .
Leading providers
Of the outsourced providers in the U.S., by far the largest company in terms of revenue is ServiceMaster. In 2018, the Memphis-based company reported an annual revenue of 1.9 billion U.S dollars and franchised around 5,000 cleaning establishments worldwide. However, their operations are diversified, meaning this figure includes revenue from other areas such as pest control. When looking only at cleaning services, the largest U.S. provider is in fact Jani-King. Founded by a university student in Oklahoma in 1969, Jani-King generated 727 million U.S. dollars in sales from around 7,600 franchise establishments across the world. Rounding out the top three providers by revenue is Coverall, who generated 457 million U.S. dollars in sales from around 8,300 franchises worldwide in 2018.
