The Nottingham workforce has helped to contribute to Specsavers’ growth in the city – and the company is set to expand even further.
That was the message from Dilesh Magdani, director of finance – shared services at Specsavers, who was speaking to the audience at a recent Nottingham Means Business (NMB) lunch.
Specsavers hosted the NMB lunch at its city HQ in NG2 Business Park where members were invited to find out more about the organisation, which is the largest privately owned opticians in the world with offices in Guernsey, Southampton and Nottingham.
Specsavers moved into Nottingham five years ago, employing 50 staff. Today, the organisation is 250-strong locally and growing rapidly, said Magdani.
“We have a number of services working from this office,” he said. “We run our contact centre and finance shared services centre from Nottingham. Our contact centre is 130-strong and while there is a lot of competition locally from other organisations for the best contact centre staff, we believe that this is a positive for the city. A lot of the Specsavers success is down to the talented pool of people here in Nottingham.
“Nottingham has been fantastic for Specsavers – not only in terms of the workforce, but also the opportunities. We have a great relationship with Nottingham Trent University from whom we take several interns every year.
“It’s also important that Nottingham is central to the UK, and therefore easy to commute to other parts of the country. Locally, we have a growing tram network which will really benefit us and the Specsavers workforce. We are also located close to East Midlands Airport which is vital for travel to our head office in Guernsey.”
Specsavers’ resourcing partner Sarah Morledge said:
“Nottingham has been a success for us. Invest in Nottingham helped us move here and we continue to grow significantly. We made 150 offers of employment this financial year alone and we have a growing apprenticeship programme at Specsavers of which we are very proud.”
Also speaking at the NMB event was David Ralph, chief executive of the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership who set out the city’s aspirations for the coming months.
“It is really evident to me that Invest in Nottingham is working with businesses for the good of the city, and creating a high quality environment in which businesses can flourish,” he said.
“What we know is that economic growth is created by the private sector and it is important that we recognise we have to support this. Nottingham has set itself up as the UK’s smartest city. The LEP is taking control of the road map for growth so that everything we do is complementary.”
Simon Gray, chief executive of NMB, congratulated Specsavers on its achievements locally.He said:
“It’s important that we recognise the success of Specsavers in Nottingham. It is great that the business is doing well and not only expanding its services, but also helping to develop the Nottingham workforce. We look forward to the organisation’s further development in the city.”
