 House cleaning and technology - Fichaya is changing the game in this sector with their technology-enabled cleaning platform. While most companies have been relying on technology for years now, cleaning businesses have only started adopting tech recently, by helping simplify mundane processes for both the client and the customer alike. Founded by Jim Ofodum and Steph Ogundoyin, Fichaya is a technology-enabled company that provides cleaning and organising services. They are super customer-focused and strive to create the best experience for every customer by using technology to streamline the process from enquiry to managing customers' homes and offices on a monthly basis via fichaya.com. The company uses technology to amplify easy access for its customers to book and subscribe to monthly plans while providing a mobile application that enables its cleaning associates to view their cleaning schedules, see how much they’ve earned each month etc - a first of its kind for any Nigerian company in the cleaning industry. Fichaya is an interesting name as it literally means “clean it” in Igbo, a language widely spoken in the Eastern part of Nigeria. The company was founded on the foundation of time management. According to a report by Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) in its 2022 outlook, on average, Lagos residents spend more than 1,000 hours in traffic annually. Nigerians, especially those who live in Lagos, spend a lot of time at work and commuting to and from work. Ofodum noticed that cleaning can take the better part of days that should be spent with family and friends and this was why she created Fichaya. The idea of Fichaya is to give individuals time to handle every other aspect of their lives while Fichaya handles the cleaning. The company’s mission is to help customers focus on more important things.
Fichaya also empowers over 85 cleaning associates through training. They just launched their training institution (Fichaya Academy) which has trained over 270 cleaning professionals around Nigeria so far. Through their academy, they are able to support more customers that need training for their home/live-in maids and office cleaners. The company, which completed over 4000 cleaning bookings between 2020 and 2021, believes that being a part of their customers' lives in some form, whether it’s through cleaning, fumigation or organising services is a rewarding mission. Ofodum believes that innovation is about creative thinking and bringing originality in your work or how one does their work. She says “A company cannot grow without constantly innovating. You have to be willing to constantly evolve as a founder, moving with the demand of the market”. It takes a village of dedicated and highly skilled people to build a vision, however in Africa, it is quite difficult to find and retain the right talent. Ofodum wants to use Fichaya to enhance the capabilities of Africans so they can be equipped to earn a decent wage, no matter their educational status. This in turn will decrease wage theft and unemployment, which are the biggest issues around employment in Africa. Ofodum’s dream is for Fichaya to be the dominant tech-enabled household brand everyone thinks about across Africa and eventually, North America. Connect with Jim Ofodum on LinkedIn here. Comments are closed.
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