History

At the turn of the 20th century, one man's vision of a customer focused business set the scene for over a hundred years of extraordinary expansion and provided the basis for modern day differentiation. Although a man with a vision, Frederick William Goodliffe probably never envisaged that the window cleaning service he set up in 1900, employing one part-time man equipped with a ladder, pail and pushcart, would become an integrated property support services giant on a global scale, with some 60,000 highly-trained employees offering over 80 services from operating bases in five continents

The core principle upon which he originally founded the business remains the same today: to organise our services around you, the client – we now call that concept 'Sustainable Solutions'.

From the very beginning, Frederick Goodliffe wanted to offer a flexible service based on what the client wanted. This encouraged him to set up his own business, aptly named the New Century Window and General Cleaning Company. Growing demand for office cleaning, coupled with the commercial drive of Frederick’s three sons, prompted the establishment of a new company in 1930 called Office Cleaning Services.
Frederick Goodliffe handed over to a co-leadership team of his three sons, who famously shared a custom-made triple desk. In the hands of the new generation, services expanded and new markets were penetrated.

The era of the third generation was one of continuing growth of services and expansion into international markets, including a pioneering launch into aircraft cleaning services in 1966. As was typical in the 1950s and 60s, the Group's strategy focused on acquisition and diversification.

Under the leadership of Chris Cracknell, CEO, the fourth generation saw it as their task to consolidate and overhaul the Group's strategic approach as almost 200 brands had been accumulated. Non-core activities were shed, with other areas of the Group brought together. 

This huge task began with the need to determine the Group's key strengths and assess what the market wanted. The core skills that had been created over the years were pulled together and consolidated in the form of an integrated range of services – One Complete Solution – again, revolving around the client as the hub.The fourth generation has continued to expand overseas into many new countries including Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Bangladesh and more recently, Singapore, China and Qatar. This growth has been achieved through acquisitions, partnerships, franchises and organically.

The OCS Group's development in the UK and throughout the world remains focused on Frederick’s core principle – the provision of Sustainable Solutions to support your business objectives. We just ask one thing - 'please talk to us,' so we can create business sustainability together.



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