In this success story, Umer Nangiana reports on how SCM has

grown from a small company of 12 staffers to a group of eight with

over 1200 — and a customer base of over 260 clients — in just 14 years

Starting out with a small company having only 12 people on staff, they have grown into a group of eight companies with over 1200 staff members in just 14 years. And they have achieved this success through sustained adherence to higher standards of quality in the services they provide.

One of the biggest companies in Doha providing cleaning services today, Al-Sayed Cleaning, Maintenance & Rent A Car Co (SCM), has established itself as one of the pioneers in the services sector.

With a customer base of over 260 clients in its list with names as big as New Doha International Airport, LuLu hypermarkets, Carrefour, Spinney’s, Four Season Hotel, many upmarket fashion outlets besides five-star hotels and schools, the company was recently rewarded for its high tech professional approach with ISO certification.

Just two weeks ago, the company’s Managing Director Salman K al-Kuwari celebrated the award of three ISO Certifications, ISO 14001:2004, ISO 9001:2008 and OHSAS 18001:2007, with his management team and staff in a ceremony hosted at Radisson Blu.

“We have been given these three certificates and it is a big achievement for our company. We have achieved it through team spirit under the leadership of our MD,” Lalith Jayasekara, the Business Development Manager of the company, tells Community.

Founded in 2000, SCM provides a range of cleaning and maintenance programmes to commercial and industrial clients throughout Qatar. The company specialises in servicing hospitals, hyper markets, factories, banks, office buildings, schools, shopping centres, hotels, flats and villas.

“We have been expanding rapidly, especially in the last two years. In the meantime, we were trying to get the ISO certification. It was awarded to us after we fulfilled all their requirements and for that we have been putting in a lot of hard work all these years,” Jayasekara says.

Some of the existing projects with SCM are Carrefour Hypermarket, Villaggio and Land Mark malls, Al-Mana Fashion and Al-Mana Luxury with its cluster of fashion outlets, LuLu Hypermarket in Airport, Gharaffa, Al-Khor, its warehouses and many other schools and five-star hotels.

It has now won new projects that include the New Doha International Airport (NDIA) MTB 3rd Floor under SkyOryx JV and CP11 & CP94 under ADCC JV, Spinneys at Mall and Pearl Qatar, Emiri Hangars ADCC JV, British Council among others.

Jayasekara says the company is going to employ another 400 people in the workforce at the NDIA project.

“We do all types of services when it comes to cleaning. We have mainly two types called general cleaning and contract cleaning. We do building cleaning, houses, banks, high-rise buildings, etc. Our company has expanded to acquire and form other companies, too,” says the company’s BDM.

Within these 15 years, the company has gone on to own eight companies that include Al-Sayed Real Estate, Al-Sayed Construction Co., Galaxy Maintenance and Cleaning Co., Image Hospitality Service Co., Gulf International Catering Co., IL Sorbetto besides the Cleaning and Maintenance and a Rent-a-Car company.

“We use latest machinery and state-of-the-art techniques. Certain special equipment that we use has been imported from Italy. In Lulu and Carrefour, we have put these machines to work. So we are not just dependent on manpower,” emphasises the business development manager.

Jayasekara, however, adds that one of the secrets of the company is the high value it attaches to the welfare and safety of its staff and work force. “At our company, we are always concerned about the welfare of our staff. We give them salary on time. On the first day of every month, they get it in their accounts. We also give them personal loans, any advances they need besides the medical allowances and bonuses,” he says, adding that the company management celebrates important occasions with the staff. This is how it maintains the team spirit at the company.

At SCM, they maintain a three-ring standard in quality, environment and occupational safety. When it comes to quality, they make sure that the services they are providing are up to the standards of the clients.

In its pledge to protect the environment from harmful effects of chemical disposals, Jayasekara says the company takes utmost care in the methods of getting rid of the waste. “First of all, the chemicals we use are environmental friendly. Most of the products we use are brought from UK and those are advanced products. There are some products from Germany and Italy,” he says.

“To maintain quality, we take care of our staff and their personal hygiene. We train the staff thoroughly on all these aspects. For the environment safety, we make sure that the waste that we dispose is mixed and diluted with water and is disposed to the correct drains according to the methods prescribed,” he points.

At SCM, they regularly train the staff on occupational safety and provide them with proper equipment required to ensure their personal safety. This includes shoes, goggles and other body gear.

Jayasekara, who has been with the company right from the beginning, remembers the hard times they had to endure at the outset. When they started this company, they were the first company which started canvassing services.

“I am someone who went from client to client, shop to shop. I canvassed. Earlier, it was not done like this. As a sales person, I visited all the places,” Jayasekara explains.

Recalling his experiences, he says, he first started with the Landmark Mall which started in 2001. “The first business I got from them (Landmark) was QR350 per month. It was a loss but we went for it and started the business,” remembers Jayasekara.

It was a Rivoli shop. From thereon, they never looked back. One after the other, the shops kept reaching out and ultimately, they began to win bigger projects for malls, schools and other establishments in the city. Today, 90 percent of the malls, especially the fashion outlets are using SCM services, claims Jayasekara.  

Their oldest clients such as LuLu and Carrefour have stuck with them for years. The reason is the relationship of trust that the company has developed with clients. “We have been providing them with quality services and as long as we are doing that, we do not feel any threat from any other company,” asserts the company’s BDM.

He admits there are other companies out in the market which offer cheaper rates and use other such tactics, but SCM clientele have unshakeable trust in its services. “It is on our logo, ‘Cleaning you can trust’ and we follow it to the very core,” stresses Jayasekara. “What we promise, we deliver.”

Jayasekara points out that keeping clients such as Lulu and Carrefour with them for over a decade in itself was an indication of the higher standards of quality and service the SCM maintains.

“We had a very hard time in the beginning. I still remember I had a vehicle without air-conditioning that I used going from client to client. I still remember one day I went to meet a client at 11am and waited for him to show up till 2:30pm. We persisted,” recalls Jayasekara.

The company witnessed a gradual but sustained growth by building up clientele, starting from smaller companies and moving on to the giants. To all of them, their standard of services remained the same.

SCM is owned by Salman K al-Kuwari, who is the MD and it has on its board of directors Hamad S al-Kuwari, Khalifa S al-Kuwari, Rashid S al-Kuwari and Mohamed S al-Kuwari.