The Risks in Outsourcing Laundry Services

Despite offering convenience, there are four key reasons why outsourcing may not work for your business.

Should you run your own laundry services?

Companies often outsource their laundry services to specialized operators. They do this in order to avoid organizational and monetary expenditures on activities they consider less strategic, or too complex to be handled internally.

But is outsourcing always a good idea? It is important to analyze the risks connected to externalizing laundry services and propose a way to score the strategic value of such activity. This way you can make an informed decision on whether outsourcing will work for your business or whether there are advantages to keeping your laundry services in-house.

The long-term costs of outsourced laundry services

When it comes to long-term costs, you should start by evaluating the volume of laundry you have to do. Outsourcing costs less, but only in the short run; in the long run it becomes a linear cost that takes away a fixed amount of revenue on a regular basis.

This worsens if you consider that some laundry equipment has a very favorable ratio between buying costs and running costs, therefore the time span in which buying a solution becomes more convenient, shortens.

When should you consider such issue? When your business is big enough to sustain a small laundry, and the ratio between laundry and revenues is fixed. For example, a large, established cafeteria business where the more people you serve, the more laundry you have to clean. In this case, it may be convenient to set up an internal laundry facility, accurately choosing appliances based on the following criteria:

• Easy to understand and operate (ergonomics)
• Low running costs
• Strong after-sales service to avoid unpredictable costs and forced stops

Risks in laundry services quality

Professional laundry services can certainly work reliably, but some businesses need to go the extra mile. If your business is highly affected by the quality of cleaning, maybe you should think about internalizing your laundry services. A luxury boutique hotel, for instance, whether large or small, cannot afford to take the risk of low quality in its cleaning services, and could profit from increased control of laundry operations.

Unpredictability in laundry service needs

Outsourcing laundry services also means having to negotiate on average quantities and turnaround time. If your business has hard-to-predict peaks in laundry activities (think about nursing homes during an annual flu outbreak), an external supplier could struggle to maintain the necessary performance when it comes to cleaning and linen delivery.

The issue of sustainability

If your business places importance on sustainability, or your brand has eco-friendly values, internalizing your laundry can give you control over the environmental impact of your laundry operations.

You can never be sure of the sustainability commitment of a supplier, unless you have the chance to choose a certified service, which is normally more expensive. By setting up your own laundry, you can select the most sustainable appliances, such as commercial washers that reduce the use of water or have automatic dosing to ensure quality cleaning results with the least possible usage of chemicals.