Partnering for Change: Visiting i-team Global with Wessex
21 September 2026
Exploring how collaboration, innovation and shared expertise can help shape the future of commercial cleaning.
Commercial cleaning is evolving. Clients are looking for greater efficiency, consistent standards and measurable sustainability outcomes, while service providers are responding to rising costs, recruitment challenges and changing expectations.
Understanding how technology can support those priorities was one of the reasons Chris Cain, Head of ESG, Paul Spencer, Environment & Procurement Manager, and PJ Walton, Portfolio Director, recently travelled to Eindhoven with Matthew Rogers,
Head of Operations at Wessex, our longstanding equipment service partner.
Over three days at i-team Global, we explored the technology, ideas and partnerships helping to shape the future of commercial cleaning, while sharing some of the challenges and opportunities we see across our own services.
Getting hands-on with innovation
A highlight of the visit was spending time in the i-team Experience Centre, where we had the opportunity to see and test a range of equipment, including the i-mop, cobotic-45 and newer co-botic technology such as the i-Walk.
We were able to experience the equipment for ourselves and explore how it might perform in real environments.
Questions quickly moved beyond product features.
How easy is the equipment to use? How does it fit around people and furniture? Where could it improve productivity? What impact could it have on cleaning standards, colleague experience and the way services are designed?
Being able to discuss those questions directly with the people behind the technology gave us valuable insight into where innovation can create genuine operational benefits.
The role of co-botics in commercial cleaning
Co-botics are becoming an increasingly familiar part of the commercial cleaning landscape, particularly in large environments where repetitive floor-cleaning tasks can be automated.
Seeing this technology in action gave us an opportunity to think carefully about where it has the greatest value.
We’re not looking to replace people, we’re looking to support them.
Co-botics can help with repetitive activity, creating more time for cleaning colleagues to focus on the tasks that require judgement, flexibility, attention to detail and interaction with building users. It is that combination of people and technology that makes innovation most interesting.
The discussions also helped us think more practically about training, workloading and how technology can support service delivery across different types of client environments.
Learning through partnership
One of the most valuable aspects of the visit was bringing together different perspectives.
Regular Cleaning understands how equipment performs within live client environments. Wessex brings extensive experience in supplying, maintaining and supporting equipment throughout its lifecycle. i-team understands the design, development and future direction of its products.
Bringing those perspectives together created open conversations about industry challenges, operational feedback and future innovation.
Our cleaning colleagues were a key part of those discussions too. Their feedback and day-to-day experience provide valuable insight into how equipment performs in practice and where improvements can make the biggest difference.
As our long-standing equipment service partner, Wessex plays an important role in helping us understand not only how equipment performs today, but how it can continue to deliver value over time.
Matthew Rogers, Head of Operations at Wessex, said:
“The visit to the i-Team Experience Centre was much more hands-on and focused on innovation and what the future of commercial cleaning could look like for Regular Cleaning. Being able to see the technology working, try the equipment and discuss real-life applications made it much easier to identify where different solutions could genuinely improve productivity, cleaning standards and the experience for operators.
For me, the biggest value was being able to explore those opportunities alongside the Regular Cleaning team, discussing their challenges as we went and looking at technology in terms of the problems it can solve rather than simply the features of a machine.”
Connecting cleaning, water and wider impact
The visit also provided an opportunity to spend time with Machiel van Dooren from the Made Blue Foundation, exploring the relationship between cleaning, water use and social impact.
Through i-team’s partnership with Made Blue, equipment including the i-mop and cobotic-45 contributes to projects that support access to clean drinking water around the world.
It is an interesting example of how equipment choices can extend beyond operational performance alone. Alongside helping to reduce water and chemical consumption within cleaning services, these products are also connected to wider social impact outcomes.
As an industry that relies on water every day, understanding that connection feels increasingly important.
What this means for our clients
Visits like this help us make better-informed decisions about the equipment, technology and partnerships that support our services.
By working closely with manufacturers, service partners and our operational teams, we can better understand where innovation delivers genuine value and where it does not. It allows us to assess new ideas in real-world environments and focus on solutions that support productivity, sustainability and the experience of both clients and colleagues.
Looking ahead
Spending time with i-team and Wessex reinforced something we already believe strongly: the best outcomes come from collaboration.
Whether it is manufacturers developing new technology, service partners providing expertise and support, or cleaning colleagues sharing practical feedback from the frontline, every perspective helps shape better decisions.
For us, Partnering for Change means bringing those perspectives together, asking the right questions and continuing to learn as commercial cleaning evolves.