It dosnt always work, like with waitrose. Before they went with area w/c companies I knew a guy who cleaned one for 18 years & they were happy. Since the new company took over there have been loads of em coming and going & witrose store managers aint happy.
I think it will all slowly revert back to sole traders doing a good job as they personally look after it.
That isnt to say all w/c working for these companies do rubbish work. Far from it. Its just in this case
I wonder if the issue is a different one from the perspective of the national manager in the head office that deals with the contracts, is the level of grief that a he gets from his store managers worse than the grief he had in co ordinating large numbers of sub contractors.
I would also hazard a guess that a national retail chain using say 50 sub contractors across the country has its fair share of problems. The problem are different but the end result for the national manager is the same, headaches.
Most retail stores window look ok to me, not brilliant but like they ocasionally get a rub from someone, if these companies want to look for the bottom price either in local subbies or national contracts they will get low quality work for the most part.