Specsavers sees costs clearly with cloud-based budgeting.

Specsavers, a British multinational optical retail chain, offers optician services and eyewear in stores throughout the British Isles, Australasia, and the Nordic countries. As the business became more complex, the team’s spreadsheet-based processes began to show their cracks. Specsavers urgently needed a new budgeting solution.

With the help of technology partner Forpoint Solutions, Specsavers turned to Workday Adaptive Planning and was able to implement the solution in two months. Forpoint worked closely with Specsavers to prioritize and build out essential budgeting capabilities and helped build the required models to calculate costs related to headcount and travel—all in time for the annual budget.

Deploying the Business Planning Cloud has dramatically reduced the time and effort Specsavers spends creating and consolidating budgets across 60 cost centres. More importantly, Specsavers now has visibility into and understanding of different cost drivers in order to control spending and manage growth. And soon they’ll be able to forecast more frequently as well as improve self-service reporting.

Challenges.

• Limited visibility into critical cost drivers, including headcount and travel

• Lengthy budgeting process, requiring consolidation of 60 cost centres

• Error-prone spreadsheets which detracted from finance’s more strategic responsibilities

Results.

• Streamlined budgeting and consolidation, which enables budget changes to be made and reflected on the P&L statement within seconds rather than days

• Better understanding of cost drivers and what-if-scenario modeling

• Finance focused on strategy and growth rather than manipulating spreadsheets