WHEN GREEN
MEETS CLEAN
Danish professional cleaning equipment specialist Nilfisk-Advance is one of the world’s leading producers of professional cleaning equipment. Today the company is firmly committed to being an environmentally responsible organisation.
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ilfisk-Advance is based in Denmark but has production facilities in Asia, Europe and the Americas as well as sales companies in 43 countries and distributors in 70 countries. It is partly this global presence that has allowed it to maintain its success for over a century since its establishment in 1906 by a Danish engineer Mr P.A Fisker, with his partner Mr Nilsen. Since the late 1980s Nilfisk-Advance has been a part of the NKT Group, and following this it began to enjoy a period of rapid development as opposed to the steady growth it had seen over the previous decades. With a series of acquisitions of smaller companies it has been able to expand its product portfolio and international presence. The majority of the company’s business is with B2B customers (around 85 per cent) although a small percentage of its products, including the high-pressure washers manu-
factured by its subsidiary Alto, are for the consumer market. However, the company continues to be best-known for its industrial and professional cleaning equipment, as we shall see.
Acquisitions and expansions In February 2012 Nilfisk was able to strengthen its position in the industrial market in the UK with the acquisition of the British dealer Industrial Cleaning Machines (ICM) – a Wolverhampton based company specialising in the Service, Hire and Sale of industrial cleaning machinery. This will allow Nilfisk to expand its market reach and establish a strong industrial service capability in the industrial heartland of the UK. In December of the same year the company announced the opening of its newest international operation in Peru. The new sales company will be based in Lima and will offer direct
sales and service to Nilfisk’s customers across the country. This is all part of the company’s continued global expansion: the launch of this Peruvian operation will strengthen its footprint in Central and South America. It will allow Nilfisk to better serve its customers and meet the increasing demand for high quality products in the professional cleaning industry.
Range of products Nilfisk-Advance’s cleaning solutions have a number of applications, including industrial, construction, automotive, schools and offices, shopping centres or domestic, for example. Its range includes industrial vacuum cleaners, which makes up around 35 per cent of its business, floor-care equipment such as floor scrubbers and sweepers (40 per cent) with the rest (15 per cent) consisting of high-pressure washers for the consumer market.
