ISS consolidates the Cornellà 'workplace' innovation center as a business

The innovation center in workplace that the company ISS inaugurated in Cornellà has consolidated, in less than a year, as a new business division of the Danish multinational in Spain.

The services for defining and adapting workspaces have had significant demand among "international clients and those of a certain business dimension," according to Javier Urbiola, executive president of ISS Spain, who attributes the "success" to the response that ISS can provide to intensify the connection between people and spaces.

From its positioning in the workplace field, ISS develops safe and pleasant spaces for employees, while adapting to the organization's culture to help reduce environmental impact, attract talent, and provide the right balance between in-person work and new remote modalities. In short, explains Urbiola, designing spaces perfectly adapted to the needs of each organization at all times.

Activity at the Cornellà innovation hub generated in its first months of operation ---the second half of 2021--- a turnover of eight million euros, representing 1.3% of the total business.

Urbiola specifies that the workplace division completes the circle of services that ISS offers to industry, offices, or health centers; the three areas on which the group focuses in Spain after the divestment in the catering area with the agreement reached ---in November 2020--- with the multinational Aramark.

After a 2020 marked by the impact of the pandemic, the company grew by 5% in 2021, with a turnover of 594 million euros, recovering pre-COVID figures. The firm provides its services to 3,265 clients (serving 12,000 workspaces) and employs nearly 30,000 people (a figure that places ISS among the top 10 employers in Spain).

By business areas, cleaning services, through its Cleaning division, has reached a total turnover of 408 million euros, a figure that represents a 7% increase compared to the previous year. The integration and key accounts area (IFS – Key Accounts), another of the company's major bets in its medium and long-term business strategy, reached 91 million euros. This upward trend has also been seen in technical services (encompassing gardening and maintenance), which have increased by 8% compared to the previous year.

Exports its management model to the Danish group

Javier Urbiola attributes the results to concentration on key segments, a deep investment in technology, and a new internationally aligned operating model. In this regard, he highlights the internal management and digitalization processes that have been implemented in the Spanish subsidiary —which represents 7% of the Danish multinational's global business— due to the effectiveness they have provided in the daily operations of the 12,000 covered service points. To the extent that, together with other processes developed in Switzerland, ISS Spain's internal management systems have been exported to all subsidiaries of the Danish group.