ANNUAL

REVIEW 2013 - 2014

‘This is, simply, a business that never reaches its destination. In the pursuit of best value and an unbeatable customer experience, there is always more we can do.’

2013/14 was another phenomenal year for Specsavers, a year

which saw us make huge progress across the business and lay

some solid foundations for future success.

This review outlines just a small selection of business

highlights from the last twelve months: the initiatives and

ideas that have been delivered by partners and have helped

our business advance.

Throughout the document, we also hear first-hand from some

of our store partners on life at Specsavers. These personal

accounts offer a great snapshot of what the partnership

means for our 2,700-plus store partners. And they are incredibly rewarding to read, as they reflect the

hopes and dreams we both had for Specsavers when we opened the first store some 30 years ago: talented

local leaders who are passionate about their store businesses, their customers and their teams; a retail offer

that continually evolves to amaze customers and exceed expectations; a business that remains nimble in a

constantly changing landscape, seizing opportunities, confronting challenges and never standing still.

We hear from Imogen Hoyle, partner of the Mansfield store in the UK, who says: ‘Quite simply, this is a

people business. The results speak for themselves. We achieved all elements of our annual plan through our

people.’ And Michael Simpson of the Mount Barker store in Australia, who says: ‘The Specsavers support

office is continually working on new ways to improve our service delivery… from customer satisfaction

levels to tracking jobs in real time, they encourage best practice to give our customers exceptional service.’

And Anna-Maria Bengtsson from the Uppsala store in Sweden, who will soon be fulfilling her own dream,

having graduated from one of our partner development programmes: ‘It is my ambition to run my own

store and now I feel ready.’

The Specsavers we are part of today has far surpassed our original hopes and dreams, delivering affordable

eyecare and hearing care to almost 29 million customers in more than 1,700 stores across 10 markets.

But we have always believed in setting ambitious targets, in constantly improving what we do and in

pushing our teams to deliver for our partners and customers across the globe. This is, simply, a business

that never reaches its destination. In the pursuit of best value and an unbeatable customer experience,

there is always more we can do.

We can’t wait to see how much the Specsavers partnership can achieve this year.

Doug Perkins

Chairman and Co-founder

Dame Mary Perkins

Co-founder

Introduction

Our Vision To passionately provide best value eyecare and hearing care to everyone, simply, clearly and consistently, exceeding customer expectations every time.

Our Values Treat people as we would like to be treated ourselves.

Passionate about:

• Our customers – the lifeblood of our business

• Our people – supporting our staff to be the best they can be

• Partnership – at the heart of everything we do

• Communities – giving back to and working with our local communities

• Results – keep it simple, get it done, deliver on our promises

Contents

46

10141821

252628

The year in numbers

Customers

People

Partnership

Communities

Results

Building on our success

The Specsavers Board

Contact details

The year in numbers

First store

198

4

199

0

199

7

200

4

200

5

200

5

200

6

200

7

200

8

200

8

UK

Specsavers

Opticians

ROI

Specsavers

Opticians

Netherlands

Specsavers

Opticiens

Sweden

Specsavers

Optik

Norw

ay

Specsavers

Optikk

Denm

ark

Louis

Nielsen

Spain

Specsavers

Opticas

Finland

Specsavers

Optikko

Australia

Specsavers

Optometrists

New

Zealand

Specsavers

Optometrists

UK

ROI

Netherlands

Sweden

Norway

Denmark

Spain

Finland

Australia

New Zealand

Total revenue end of 2013/14

£1,070m

£63.7m

£84.8m

£72.2m

£368.2m

UK

ROI

Netherlands

Sweden

Norway

Denmark

Spain

Finland

Australia

New Zealand

118

112

74

77

Number of stores at end of 2013/14

8

47

292

692

46

optical

UK

ROI

Netherlands

586

30

110

10

hearing centres / optical stores providing hearing care services

138

44

53

£84.4m

£50.5m

£29.3m

£4.2m

£89.7m

Total revenue 2013/14

£

Total number of partners

Total number of employees

Total number of contact lenses sold

Total number of hearing aids sold

2,700+ 30,000+

Total number of frames sold

15.4 million

£1.9 billion 203,000+

04 / 05

2013

Number of stores £ million revenue

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

200

0

200

1

200

2

200

3

200

4

200

5

200

6

200

7

200

8

200

9

1,000

1,050

950

900

850

800

750

700

1,350

1,400

1,450

1,500

1,300

1,250

1,200

1,150

1,100

650

600

550

500

450

400

350

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

1,550

1,600

1,700

1,800

2010

2011

2012

1,900

Total number of optical and hearing centres

1,711

% increase on revenue 2012/13

7.8%

380 million

Passionate about our customersThe lifeblood of our business

2013/14 saw us further strengthen our retail offer to deliver even better value to more customers and ensure that they return to our stores again and again. We now have close to 29 million registered customers worldwide – a real testament to our focus in this area.

Improving and extending our offerWe have introduced some great retail initiatives this year, to provide a better service and better value to our customers.

Customers have welcomed the convenience of Sunday opening and increased trading hours in more of our UK, Republic of Ireland and Australasian stores. The introduction of fundus cameras across our Finnish and Swedish stores means we now offer digital retinal photography at no extra cost to customers in all but one of our markets, underlining our ongoing commitment to professionalism and clinical care. In Australia and New Zealand we now offer free polarising lenses with prescription sunglasses, offering customers much improved vision and comfort by providing 100% UV protection and eliminating glare. In the Netherlands, our ‘no gap’ offer means that customers with the appropriate level of health insurance cover can get glasses from Specsavers at no extra cost to them.

Our kids’ two free pairs offer has just launched in the UK and the Republic of Ireland and offers children a second pair of glasses for free, on top of the pair they are entitled to under the National Health Service – better value and peace of mind for parents. Also in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, customers can now get a free pair of glasses when they buy a hearing aid from one of our stores, representing great value and a natural extension of our 2 for 1 offer.

Our acquisition of UK domiciliary eyecare business Healthcall last July has allowed us to extend our best value eyecare offer to the estimated 1.2 million housebound people who are unable to visit an optician unaided, many of whom have been loyal Specsavers customers for many years. We are introducing the partnership model into the Healthcall business with more than 30 joint venture partnerships to be put in place by the end of 2014/15. Healthcall customers can now choose from a selection of 180 frames and are benefiting from huge improvements in service, including shorter lead times for appointment bookings and delivery of glasses.

In 2013/14 we received nearly 1.5 million pieces of feedback from customers worldwide through MAZE, our customer satisfaction survey. This information is like gold dust. It not only allows store teams to follow up quickly on any issues a customer has faced but also offers a big-picture view of our strengths and weaknesses and has led to a number of initiatives to improve the service we provide.

Clockwise from top left: point of sale poster promoting our ‘kids’ two free pairs’ offer in the UK and Republic of Ireland; a selection of images from our designer brands (L-R: Aurora, Replay, Karl Lagerfeld and Cheap Monday); a screenshot of our upgraded website which has significantly improved click-through rates from the homepage.

06 / 07

The digital revolutionDigitalisation is permeating our daily lives and is a massive opportunity that businesses ignore at their peril. To meet changing trends and adapt to an increasingly virtual world, we are revolutionising the way we sell glasses. This is not just about developing our online capabilities but also about enhancing the retail environment through digital technology to make the customer experience slicker, faster and more enjoyable.

We have had great feedback on our new customer journey in our UK pilot stores, where staff use iPads to greet and register customers and to talk them through the different stages of their visit. Precision Care, our three-step process which is live in Australia, New Zealand and the Nordics, uses technology to help customers choose frames, select the best lens options for them and get measured accurately before the glasses are fitted. This includes the Digital Mirror, which can take multiple photos of a customer wearing different frames to help them see how the frames look in profile and from other angles. In addition, our new virtual dispensing tool helps staff explain the different parts of the eye and advise customers on the impact their prescription might have on their choice of lens.

Some 17 million people accessed our websites in 2013. Our research has helped us to improve the overall layout and design of the site across all markets, including the addition of new CGI frame photography, a ‘Request an appointment’ feature and enhanced content for local store pages. The new look offers a more intuitive experience with a focus on fashion trends, offers, eye test and eyecare information, and has significantly improved click-through rates from the homepage.

Our online contact lens ordering system, first launched in Australia and New Zealand in 2012, is now available to customers in Sweden. The system has driven growth in Australasia, increasing market share from 12 to 33 per cent. Orders have already surpassed 30,000 in Sweden since it was introduced last June.

In the UK and the Republic of Ireland, we launched an online corporate eyecare voucher system in July, transforming the way eyecare is purchased, allocated and managed for our business and corporate customers. Vouchers can now be emailed directly to the employee and then redeemed at any Specsavers store, either by printing them off or presenting them on a smartphone. We also introduced loadable gift cards – a popular and familiar high-street concept.

Focus on framesOver the last few years, we have invested heavily in our frame ranges to offer an outstanding choice of brands, colours and styles at all price points.

This year was no exception, with the arrival of new global brands Aurora, Cheap Monday and Replay as well as BOSS Orange in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. We also introduced a number of locally relevant brands such as Karl Lagerfeld and Selected by Helena Christensen in the Netherlands and the Nordics, Nordic brand Bruuns Bazaar, Collette Dinnigan in Australia and New Zealand, and Fineform, a new range of lightweight frames, in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

We refreshed three of our designer ranges – Osiris, Quiksilver and Tommy Hilfiger – as well as bringing an abundance of new styles to our own brand. For kids, we launched the Disney Princess and Star Wars ranges in all our markets and the hugely successful Moshi Monsters brand in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Prescription sunglasses were also a big focus for us this year, with the launch of ranges from Timberland, Tommy Hilfiger, Karen Millen, Quiksilver, Roxy and Red or Dead. The Wall of Sun, a new, eye-catching way of displaying sunglasses, which is now in all our markets, gives prescription sunglasses much greater prominence in store. All this activity has led to a significant increase in sales of prescription sunglasses year-on-year.

‘This year we welcomed a range of new brands including Aurora, Cheap Monday, Replay, BOSS Orange, Karl Lagerfeld, Bruuns Bazaar and Collette Dinnigan.’

New technologies for lensesThis year, we were the first company in the world to launch our own-label version of a revolutionary new contact lens. Easyvision magic, now launched in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the Nordics and the Netherlands, is a new daily disposable – the world’s flattest contact lens. It comes in ultra-slim foil packaging, which means less waste and better portability and also makes the lens more hygienic. When the foil is opened, the outer surface of the lens always presents first, reducing the likelihood of touching and contaminating the inner surface.

Ultrapurpose, the first contact lens solution to be added to our portfolio in more than five years, hit the market in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the Nordics in May. The solution offers new benefits to the customer by mimicking the human eye – matching the pH level of tears, incorporating the eye’s natural lubricant and maintaining beneficial tear proteins. This enhances an already successful contact lens solution business, which despatches more than 7.5 million bottles each year.

We launched a new hydrophobic lens coating, Ultra Clear Super Clean, in our four Nordic territories. Initially offered with varifocal and bifocal lenses, the coating is quick to clean and highly scratch resistant. It will be available with single vision lenses soon. We also launched a new state-of-the-art ophthalmic lens, the PENTAX Delta HD, in all our markets. The lens uses innovative technology to improve performance, regardless of the direction of sight, making it much more effective at meeting specific wearer needs, such as wide fields of vision and smaller frames.

Advancements in hearing careWe are making fantastic progress in the hearing care side of our business in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands.

The introduction in 2012 of the AQP (Any Qualified Provider) model for purchasing NHS services in England has opened our hearing care services up to more customers than ever before, giving them the choice, service and convenience they have come to expect of Specsavers. In 2013, GPs referred 55,000 NHS patients to a Specsavers store for hearing care, giving us a 28 per cent share of the market. We now offer free NHS hearing aids through 212 stores in the UK and our like-for-like hearing care sales (AQP and private) were up 40% at the end of 2013.

We have launched a nationwide campaign in the UK and the Republic of Ireland to raise awareness of our hearing care services and the fact that we are the number one provider on the high street. The campaign includes a TV commercial, door drops, an offer of free glasses with every hearing aid purchase and guaranteed same-day testing and fitting.

In the Netherlands, our share of the hearing care market has increased from 3% to 14%, in large part down to our bidding for and attaining preferred supplier status with all Dutch health insurance companies and extending the rollout of hearing services across more of our optical store network.

Exceeding expectationsThroughout the year, we see countless examples of store staff going the extra mile for customers, delivering outstanding service and care, which sets us apart as a business.

Like Sarah Burrell of the Albion Street store in Leeds, UK, who arranged a new pair of glasses for an elderly lady while she was in hospital and made a 36-mile round-trip in her own time to fit them. Or partner of our Louis Nielsen store in Køge, Jesper Eghøje, who took testing equipment and a range of frames to an elderly man who had broken his glasses, as he had recently suffered a stroke and was unable to get to a store. Or Ben Cook, partner at our Kilkenny store in Australia, who visited a local kindergarten to teach kids about glasses, following a call from a mother whose twin daughters had been teased for wearing their new frames.

And it is when we receive messages like this one from a customer at the Maidenhead store in the UK that we know we are getting it right: ‘I have now regained the use of my eye to the point that it has given me a whole new lease of life. I am more independent and happier as a result. The persistence that Farzana showed me and her compassion for her customers is overwhelming. I will never forget her.’

From left: new contact lens solution Ultrapurpose, which was introduced this year; prescription sunglasses from the Collette Dinnigan range in Australia and New Zealand.

08 / 09

Dominie DellowRundle Mall storeAdelaide, Australia

‘The February 2013 launch of Collette Dinnigan has worked magic. The brand name is a real pull for customers and her Sun Rx range is perfect. Customers love being able to wear such stylish sunglasses and correct their vision. Her range is versatile, unique and daring while being very competitively priced. My team loves to style customers in her range and most of them have a pair or two themselves.’

Passionate about our peopleSupporting our staff to be the best they can be

When a customer leaves one of our stores, it is not the cutting-edge testing equipment that they will remember most, nor the fantastic prices or choice of frames on offer. It is their interactions with our people and the service they receive: the friendly face when they first walk in; their appointment going to time; the professionalism and expertise of those who serve them, giving them the reassurance that they are in safe hands.

Our store teams are the face of Specsavers and they are what set us apart in a highly competitive market. Which is why it is crucial that they are engaged and valued in their work, knowledgeable and confident in their field and supported to be the best they can be.

Focus on training and developmentWe want working life at Specsavers to be much more than just a job. We invest heavily in people development, offering a vast range of courses and opportunities to store teams across our markets, with the potential to take them on a full career journey from entry level to partner. These opportunities cover all aspects of the Specsavers business from customer service, operations and product know-how to professional qualifications.

Our new optical apprenticeship scheme in the UK represents the first step on the career ladder. By the end of 2014/15, the scheme will have recruited several hundred apprentices into our stores, making it one of the largest schemes to be accredited by national governments. The scheme involves a career development programme, including completion of the Level 2 Diploma in Optics, monthly assessor visits, observations, online learning and courses. Gloucester store partner Paul Chessell said of his first round of applicants: ‘I was spoilt for choice. The apprentices are looking for a career in Specsavers, not just a job. I believe they can be our future and our succession plan.’

The new Level 4 Certificate in Optical Dispensing in the UK – based on the successful Australian equivalent Certificate IV in Optical Dispensing – offers a solid foundation in optical theory as well as tips and advice on how to bring prescriptions to life for customers and advise them in a clear and engaging way. More than 220 UK staff have successfully completed the course since its launch in September last year and a further 275 are currently studying toward a Level 4 qualification, with 100 more to join in April. More than 540 students across Australia and New Zealand are enrolled on, or have completed, the Cert IV and a fast-track version of the course has just been introduced. The new Optical Dispenser programme in the Nordics is tipped for similar success.

‘By the end of 2014/15, our new optical apprenticeship scheme in the UK will have recruited several hundred apprentices into our stores.’

In the Netherlands, we have opened a brand new academy that welcomes a new intake of students each term. They can go on to become fully qualified opticians through a two-year programme. Specsavers is the only optician in the country to offer such a facility and, coupled with the five MBO programmes we offer through the Deltion College, it further cements our commitment to professionalism in an industry that remains unregulated in the Netherlands.

A new online learning management system iLearn has been launched in all our markets to help support all this and enable staff to become masters of their own development. The system allows users to browse and book courses online, access e-learning via a laptop or tablet and record their continuing professional development (CDP) points. It will be central to our learning and development strategy in the coming years.

To help us measure the success of what we do in terms of people development and employee engagement, we now run an annual engagement survey for teams in our UK and Republic of Ireland stores. Last year, this led to some great initiatives and changes, particularly at a local, store level. Ninety-six per cent of stores have signed up to this year’s survey, which shows fantastic engagement from partners and a real commitment to listening to and acting on their teams’ feedback.

10 / 11

Guido van BinsbergenNijmegen, The Netherlands

‘The team is very enthusiastic about iLearn. It’s early days with the system but, as my team becomes more familiar with it, they will be able to explore their own development. I am doing the course to become a contact lens specialist, one of my colleagues is focusing on fashion, another on dispensing and another will become the varifocal expert. As our customer volumes go up, training and development is all the more crucial. We have a clear division of tasks and with store logic we know our own area of expertise and how we can help the customer.’

Clockwise from top left: one of the 12 test rooms in our new optical academy in the Netherlands; presentation in full flow at the 2014 UK Managers’ Seminar in Birmingham; team member offering advice about contact lenses at our Stockport store in the UK.

Networking events and communicationWe use a range of media to keep store staff up to date and engaged in what they do.

Events are a key part of the communications mix, providing development opportunities as well as invaluable time to meet and network with peers and colleagues from other stores.

Our annual Learning and Development Conference in the UK, aimed at anyone in store who is responsible for learning and development, was a great success last March, with a keynote address from international best-selling author Michael Heppell. Delegate feedback was fantastic with one team member saying: ‘Loved all of it, the day was amazing and I was blown away. Made me feel like part of the big team not just a number. Lots of great ideas to take back to store.’ And months of preparation culminated in our 2014 Managers Seminar in the UK, attended by around 900 store managers, which included an inspirational speech from former England rugby coach Sir Clive Woodward on his work with Team GB at the 2012 Olympics.

More than 2,200 Specsavers opticians and hearing care practitioners took part in our biggest-ever event, the 2013 UK Professional Advancement Conference (PAC). The conference, which has been running for 18 years, saw a massive increase of nearly 50% on last year’s attendance and included a varied agenda of lectures, workshops and peer discussions, as well as full-day bespoke programmes for trainee dispensing opticians and pre-registration optometrists. In addition to the conference in 2014, we are delivering a series of mini PAC events across our store regions with the aim of providing all the benefits of the main PAC on a smaller, more local scale.

The ANZ Clinical Conference, which was originally inspired by the PAC, ran for the second time this year and was hailed another success with around 400 delegates and a fantastic line-up of industry experts and speakers. Topics covered included glaucoma, vitreoretinal surgery, genetics and myopia, and the event provided some great clinical insights to the team, as well as the opportunity to come together and network with fellow professionals.

As well as face-to-face communications such as these, we also produce a range of printed and online publications in all our markets to keep our store teams informed of the latest Specsavers news and information.

Putting customers firstWith more customers visiting our stores than ever before, customer service remains a key focus for Specsavers. We launched an initiative in UK and Republic of Ireland stores to help increase focus on team development and ensure our store staff – the people who serve our customers day in, day out – remain a top priority. The initiative, which helps partners achieve people development targets throughout the year, has been a huge success and we are building on this in 2014.

This year, our customer service programme, now running in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the Nordics, has seen more optometrists and store partners than ever before coming together to share ideas for improving themselves, their businesses and the customer experience. The programme first launched in the UK five years ago and brings together professional staff to discuss and share best practice on a range of customer-related issues, from minimising waiting times and pre-test dos and don’ts, to clinic management, the three-way handover and how to use customer feedback.

And the Customer First awards, run across our markets, recognise and reward team members who epitomise the Specsavers vision and values, going above and beyond to serve our customers and exceed their expectations.

Imogen HoyleMansfield store, UK

‘Quite simply, this is a people business. I fully support the people plan initiative and use it to drive quality and consistency through our internal learning and development plan. The results speak for themselves. We achieved all elements of our 2013/2014 annual plan... all through our people.’

Bottom right: speaker line-up at the second ANZ Clinical Conference in Sydney; front cover of the first issue of Winning Team, a pan-Nordic publication for store teams; branding for Insight, our employee survey. Top right: delegates enjoying what was on offer at the 2013 UK Professional Advancement Conference.

12 / 13

Our primary channel for store-facing communications is Connect, our global intranet, now live in all markets, which offers store staff quick and easy access to operational information and updates. This year, our Nordic teams received their first issue of Winning Team, a pan-Nordic publication based on the magazine of the same name in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Australia and New Zealand. This quarterly publication is produced in five languages with 80% Nordic-wide content and 20% localised for each market. It includes inspirational stories from our stores, Q&As with team members, updates on retail initiatives and products, and customer letters.

Focusing on support teamsOur business relies on highly engaged and skilled office teams working behind the scenes to support stores. By providing partners with first-class business support, they can focus on what matters most: their customers and their teams.

When we recruit new people, it is critical that we aim for the right calibre, skill set and behaviours to set us up for future success. This year, we have reduced our reliance on recruitment agencies, allowing us to have much greater and more direct control over the resourcing and selection process, and are developing our use of social media to tap into the pool of candidates searching for new opportunities online.

We invest heavily in learning and development to support our people to be the best they can be and to provide the right opportunities to help them develop their skills,

capabilities and their careers. The Specsavers Academy offers a diverse portfolio of courses and programmes to improve business skills in our support offices worldwide. We also offer a range of on-the-job opportunities across the globe, including mentoring, job shadowing and secondments and offer funding for professional qualifications and accreditations.

Support for managers was a key focus for us this year. Almost 500 managers worldwide took part in a series of workshops across our support offices aimed at raising the bar on people management, which we know, through our annual employee survey, Insight, has a huge impact on how engaged and enabled employees feel. To supplement the workshops, we have also added five new management programmes to our academy and created a dedicated section for managers on Connect. Our global leadership development programme continued with a two-day event in 2013, focusing on how to create high-performing teams. The Connected Leader, our module for 2014, is now underway and is designed to help leaders develop the mindset and behaviours that will facilitate greater collaboration across the business.

Now in its sixth year, the Insight survey is run in support offices worldwide and continues to help us identify our strengths and opportunities and to focus on specific areas to make Specsavers an even better place to work. Nine out of 10 of our employees took part in the survey and our overall engagement score increased this year to rank alongside the world’s highest performing companies.

Passionate about partnershipAt the heart of everything we do

Specsavers is synonymous with partnership. Our support teams work with our store partners to provide a range of business support so that they can focus on driving forward their businesses, looking after their customers and leading their teams.

Communication, dialogue and eventsPartner communication and input are essential ingredients for us – we cannot succeed as a business without regularly engaging and working with our partners on current activities and future plans. Across all markets we link up with partners through a full programme of face-to-face activity, including regular regional meetings, leading partner forums, annual conferences, partner surveys and regular user groups.

Our regular regional meetings are central to maintaining two-way communication and help us remain close to what is happening in our stores from day to day. They allow us to update partners on current initiatives, to share plans and to get their thoughts on a range of strategic and operational issues. As a result we can react quickly and appropriately to changes in the market and to customer needs and feedback.

The regional meetings culminate in an annual partner seminar in each of our territories. The seminars are an unmissable opportunity for partners and support teams to meet under one roof and share business plans, challenges and opportunities through a mix of presentations, interactive events and networking sessions. Our two-day Nordic seminars, delivered in each of our Nordic markets, were a great success this year. Collectively welcoming more than 1,000 delegates, the seminars were packed with information and inspiration,

all delivered with the energy and theatre our Nordic partners have come to expect. Each seminar focused on the business plan for the coming year, as well as celebrating the achievements of 2013/14, a year which saw customer volumes increase by 10.5% across the Nordic region and sales increase by 7%.

This year we also held the inaugural Partnership Seminar in Australia. The event welcomed more than 600 partners for an inspirational day that covered our ambitious plans for the year ahead, high-impact workshops and a motivational presentation on leadership. The partners also had the chance to view the latest shop fit designs, optical equipment and upcoming frames.

Our Dutch partners enjoyed a seminar with a difference this year, with almost 200 visiting a number of stores in the UK to experience first-hand our vision of the future for our stores in the Netherlands: market leadership, high customer volumes, greater staff numbers, large retail environments and, through all this, exceptionally professional standards and fantastic customer service. These store visits gave the partners invaluable insight into how to maintain high standards as volume grows, and the opportunity to speak directly with UK partners who are running very successful, high-volume store businesses today.

In addition to the many networking events on offer throughout the year, we launched ‘Profit through your leadership’ in the Nordics, the UK and the Republic of Ireland. ‘Profit through your leadership’ is a partner-led initiative which first kicked off in Australia and New Zealand and is designed to get partners together to share ideas and best practice on improving efficiencies – and therefore profit – in their stores. It combines a programme of interactive sessions with regular store case studies. Ultimately, it is about partners tapping into the vast pool of knowledge and experience that exists across the network, to help them advance their own businesses.

As well as welcoming direct feedback, we run regular online surveys to find out what our partners think. The partner survey in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, which has been running since 2009 and is now an annual event, has proved invaluable in helping support office teams to identify better ways of working and to continue to build a partnership-focused culture. The first Partnership Charter survey was run in Australia and New Zealand this year to get feedback on the service provided by support office teams and has led to a number of changes and developments to improve service to partners.

Anna-Maria BengtssonUppsala, Sweden

‘The Pathway programme was really good – very challenging. I found it especially interesting to get a little more insight into how I am as a leader and my strengths and weaknesses. We also had a good overview of the financial side of running a store. The best thing about the programme was that we were tested and got immediate feedback. It gave me a good idea of what it is like to run a Specsavers store. It is my ambition to run my own store and now I feel ready.’

‘Pathway, our programme that develops future partners from within the business,has become an international success since it was first launched in 2012 with more than 120 graduates to date, 30 of whom are now store partners.’

14 / 15

Top left: exhibition hall at the 2014 Partnership Seminar in Australia.Above: four partners-to-be – from the first wave of UK Pathway graduates – at their graduation ceremony in Manchester.

Reaching more customersEach year we work with leading partner forums and user groups to introduce a raft of retail initiatives across our territories, as outlined throughout the pages of this review. The development of our retail offer delivers ever better value to customers, inspires store teams and boosts partner profits.

Our marketing efforts continue to reap rewards – and awards – driving more customers to our doors year on year. This year, we continued to develop our core activity in direct marketing and TV, radio, online and press advertising, as well as ramping up our use of social media. Sports sponsorship has been a huge success for us again, achieving great exposure at Test cricket matches (including the 2013 Ashes series), the 2013 British and Irish Lions Tour and the 2014 Australian Open Tennis Championships.

With customer volumes at an all-time high, it is crucial that we update and upgrade our stores to ensure they remain fit for purpose. In addition to opening 49 new stores across our markets, we have reconfigured, relocated and expanded well over 200 stores. This has included the creation of more than 175 new test rooms in the UK and the Republic of Ireland and the rollout of new in-store graphics across the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand. We have also been reconfiguring stores in the Netherlands to provide separate test rooms for optics and hearing care and have developed comprehensive plans for an exciting, new refit of our Nordics stores to wow our customers.

A world class supply chainIn order to ensure partners have ongoing and reliable access to great value products, Specsavers works tirelessly to create strong, long-lasting strategic relationships across its entire supplier base. In fact, our manufacturing and distribution sites also operate on a joint venture partnership basis, which means better control over quality assurance and swifter responses to changing market conditions.

Developing and supporting partnersDeveloping and recruiting store partners of the future is one of our biggest business priorities – and with the rate at which the business is growing across the globe, our partner recruitment needs have never been so great.

We offer a number of partnership development programmes to build leadership in our stores and to develop partners of the right calibre to secure our future success.

Key to our partner pipeline strategy is the development of home-grown talent. Pathway, our programme that develops future partners from within the business, has quickly become an international success since it was first launched in the UK in 2012. Now live in all our territories, the programme is designed to identify and develop our most promising and ambitious talents to become store partners of the future. To date, more than 120 have graduated from the course with around 30 store partners already in place as a result. There are currently well over 120 people on the course across all markets, with many more signed up. Development programmes such as these reinforce our commitment to career development, wherever our people are on that journey.

We put in place a new retail structure across the Nordics to provide partners with the backing of a full retail support team, as in our other markets. And in line with our strategy to adopt a joint venture partnership model in the Nordics, we have now successfully launched our first joint venture stores in Sweden and Norway and have established more than 20 new dual partnerships. Similar plans are underway in the Netherlands, where Pathway is really helping to accelerate the development of our partner pipeline.

And this year we introduced a series of interactive guides to stores in Australia, New Zealand, the Nordics and the Netherlands, providing an easy-to-use tool for stores to benchmark their delivery of the customer journey against best practice. The guides help stores to evaluate, adjust and lift their performances in all aspects of customer service.

‘Almost 200 Dutch partners visited stores in the UK to experience first-hand our future vision for Dutch stores: market leadership, high customer volumes, large retail environments and, through all this, exceptionally professional standards and fantastic service.’

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All our established sites are now accredited with the Carl Zeiss Vision three-star standard of operational excellence – an unparalleled result in the industry. And our rigorous quality and service-level guarantees continue to ensure outstanding service to stores, with less than 0.2% of glasses now being returned to our sites due to error or failure of quality.

The Specsavers supply chain expanded further this year, with the addition of two new facilities to help meet the growing demands of our Australasian business. Lion Distribution, our new contact lens fulfilment centre in Singapore, opened its doors last November, delivering thousands of contact lenses direct to customers every day. This will increase to 20,000 a day when the site is fully staffed. A new glazing lab is also now operational in China, to set us up for future growth.

A new programme is underway to improve how we manage our operational and IT data, with the main aim of creating a central, global database of product information that can be accessed instantly. This is hugely beneficial for stores, as meaningful product data will be available far in advance of a product launch. Our contact lens data is already live on the system and has reduced by two thirds the time it takes to launch a new product.

As part of our ongoing commitment to deliver better value to partners, we conducted a major review of frame suppliers this year, which has led to a 30% reduction in the number of suppliers we use. This drives better economies of scale and keener costs to partners as a result. Our support teams continue to protect partner profits by driving down operational costs. We offer budget holders training and guidance across the whole procurement process, from sourcing to managing supplier relationships, to ensure we are getting the best possible deal at all times.

Michael SimpsonMount Barker store, Australia

‘The Specsavers partnership has enabled huge growth in our store. Instead of devoting time to marketing, advertising ideas and recall systems, we can focus on helping more customers. The Specsavers support office is continually working on new ways to improve our service delivery. From customer satisfaction levels to tracking jobs in real time, they encourage best practice to give our customers exceptional service. Having a local training team at our disposal allows us to consistently train staff and develop their careers. The regional development team helps us track our business and brings business expertise and guidance that many health professionals lack.’

‘Each of our Nordic seminars focused on plans for the coming year as well as celebrating the achievements of 2013/14, a year which saw customer volumes increase by 10.5% across the Nordic region.’

From top: referee strips and branding from the Specsavers-sponsored 2013 British and Irish Lions Rugby Tour; Lion Distribution’s joint venture partner Kenny Chang checking stock; delegates discussing the agenda at Louis Nielsen’s 2014 Partner Seminar.

Passionate about our communitiesGiving back to and working with our local communities

We believe in citizenship and are passionate about supporting our local communities and national good causes. We are also committed to supporting eyecare and hearing care projects in developing countries.

In the past 12 months, Specsavers has raised more than £2m across the world for charities and good causes.

Our stores support numerous charities and good causes throughout the year, ranging from very local initiatives to national charities, including Guide Dogs for the Blind in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. And our support office staff are encouraged to give their time to good causes through our ‘Giving back to local communities’ volunteer programme.

Find out more about Specsavers’ community involvement, as well as our ethical and environmental commitments, in the Specsavers Corporate Responsibility report, which is available on our website.

1 We opened two more outreach vision centres in Zambia to add to the six already opened through our long-standing partnership with Vision Aid Overseas (VAO), with whom we aim to provide eyecare for the people of the southern African nation. We worked with VAO to help make the vision centres self-sufficient, contributing £156,000 to this end. Our stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland also donated more than a million pairs of glasses for use in Zambia.

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6 Across the Nordics, we gave an incredible amount of support to develop eyecare in Tanzania, with Louis Nielsen arranging seven week-long eye camps to provide eye tests and glasses to 8,000 people, while stores in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway donated tens of thousands of glasses to the project.

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2 We raised £260,000 to train 25 puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind in the UK, exceeding our target pledge.

3 Our stores and support offices in the UK and the Republic of Ireland raised more than £682,000 for various local charities and good causes, including the Movember appeal, the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance, the Hampshire Air Ambulance and Specsavers Children’s Charity.

4 Specsavers’ charity foundation in the Netherlands, the Stichting Specsavers Steunt, raised the record amount of €421,800 (£349,000) for 218 local charities – almost double what was raised in previous years.

5 Since launching our Australia and New Zealand community programme in September 2013, our stores have raised AUD 380,000 (£211,400) for a range of local charities, including the Fred Hollows Foundation, which aims to prevent avoidable blindness.

7 Louis Nielsen sponsored Søren Grotum, the first blind man to do the Team Rynkeby charity bicycle race from Denmark to Paris for the Danish Children’s Cancer Foundation. Our stores also donated DKK 15,000 (£1,700) for Danish children with cancer.

8 As the main sponsor of the Helsinki City Run, Specsavers Optikko raised €10,000 (£8,300) for local diabetic family clubs.

9 We provided free eye tests and glasses to homeless people in Kristiansand and Lillestrøm in Norway.

10 In Sweden, we began a new collaboration with SOS Children’s Villages and collected more than 6,000 pairs of glasses during a three-week fund-raising campaign. Stores also sold SOS Children’s Villages bracelets and raised more than SEK 17,000 (£1,600) for a kindergarten in Mozambique.

11 Almost SEK 72,000 (£6,500) was raised by Specsavershanden, a group of volunteers at our office in Gothenburg, for youngsters in need.

Stephan John-ThomsenFrederiksburg, Denmark

‘Our eyecare centres make an unbelievable difference to the people of Tanzania. Over three years, we have helped about 18,000 people. We have helped adults who haven’t been able to read newspapers or the bible and children who are having a hard time at school because of poor sight. I grew up in Africa, and it was unbelievable to go back there as a professional optometrist and be able to give something back to the people I love so much. It makes me feel very proud to work for a company where giving back is a core value.’

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Passionate about resultsKeep it simple, get it done, deliver on our promises

It has been another incredible year for Specsavers and, despite continued economic challenges across our markets, the partnership has delivered some great results.

Worldwide

• Opening 49 stores

• Achieving a 7.8% increase in group revenue

• Reaching record customer numbers with almost 29 million people now registered with us

• Welcoming around 17 million visitors to our websites – about 25% more than the previous year

• Winning a plethora of marketing awards, including our first for a social media campaign

• Attaining Carl Zeiss three-star ratings in all our manufacturing and distribution sites and outperforming industry standards in terms of our service and quality, with store returns due to error or quality issues less than 0.2%

UK, Republic of Ireland and Spain

• Carrying out 8.6 million eye tests

• Three quarters of our stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland enjoying record weeks

• Increasing UK sales in hearing (AQP and private) by 40% and private sales in the Republic of Ireland by 23%

• Increasing contact lens sales by 6.4%

• Acquiring domiciliary eyecare business Healthcall to extend our best value offer to even more people

• Being voted ninth for customer service out of 100 big brands in the UK, in a public survey by Which? magazine and gaining a silver award for the second year running in Management Today’s ‘Most Admired Specialist Retailer’ survey, as voted for by other retail businesses

• Performing well despite tough economic conditions and increasing our proportion of Spanish customers to more than a fifth

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The Specsavers Partnership is the world’s largest privately owned optical group, with more than 1,700 optical stores and hearing centres operating across 10 countries.

We have a hearing aid that can help you see more clearly

Buy a hearing aid, get glasses free

Ask staff for details.From top: our Seven Hills store in Greater Western Sydney, Australia; point-of-sale from our free glasses with hearing aids campaign in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Netherlands

• Achieving 20% growth in customer volume

• Increasing the hearing care business by 53% year-on-year, by becoming the preferred supplier for all health insurance companies in the Netherlands

• Launching our ‘face of Specsavers’ campaign with Dutch store partner Tom Kother

• Achieving a number of record sales weeks in 2013, including one which saw a growth in volume of 69% against 2012

Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland

• Driving customer volume up by 10.5% in the Nordic region and improving sales by 7%

• Introducing a number of initiatives, including a free sight test campaign in Denmark to coincide with Louis Nielsen’s 35th birthday and offering digital retinal photography free of charge to customers in Finland and Sweden, leading to increased sales in all four territories

• Surpassing 100,000 registered contact lens customers

• Being nominated for one of Denmark’s most prestigious retail awards – Berlingskes Detailhandelspris 2013 - with Louis Nielsen being judged among the top three retailers in the country

• Launching our online contact lens ordering system in Sweden with orders topping 30,000 to date

• Introducing striking frame displays for prescription sunglasses and designer brands, leading to an increase in category sales of 39% and 25% respectively

Clockwise from top left: team member fitting a customer with a hearing aid in our Etten-Leur store in the Netherlands; press ad promoting our market position in Australia and New Zealand; model shot of our prescription sunglasses; Louis Nielsen promotional flyers celebrating store anniversaries; Tom Kocher, face of our latest advertising campaign in the Netherlands.

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Australia and New Zealand

• Surpassing AUD 15m sales in one week in Australia and NZD 2m in New Zealand and topping AUD 134,000 in online sales in just one day

• Winning a number of awards including Australian Retailer of the Year, Australian Retail Employer of the Year and the Franchise Council of Australia’s Franchisor of the Year

• Doubling the number of AUD 39 frames on offer, lowering the price of kids’ glasses to below AUD 100 (2 for 1) for the first time and launching our best ever designer sale with a range of single pair designers from AUD 99

• Lifting our market share among health fund customers to almost 35%

• Increasing our volume share of the contact lens market from 12% to 33% and opening a new distribution centre in Singapore to support quicker delivery and further growth in this area

• Being announced as the number one choice for eye tests and prescription eyewear in Australia and New Zealand

• Despatching a record 3.2 million orders from our Melbourne Glazing Services lab

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‘Success for us is about the people and stories behind the numbers – launching exciting brands, getting savvier online, reaching more customers, changing people’s lives for the better.’

As we emerge from another tough year for the global economy, it is

with huge pride that I turn the pages of this review and reflect on all

the partnership has achieved.

Together with our partners, we delivered incredible success in

2013/14 and the culmination of this effort and activity across

Specsavers has led to a 7.8% increase in overall revenue, as well as

strong partner profitability across all of our markets.

But we have never defined our success simply through the ringing of

cash tills nor figures on a balance sheet. Success for us is about the

people and stories behind the numbers – launching exciting brands,

getting savvier online, reaching more customers, changing people’s

lives for the better. Each year brings its own challenges but, thanks to

the tireless passion and commitment of our partners and teams, we end the year galvanised and ready

for the fresh challenges and opportunities that undoubtedly lie ahead.

So what about 2014/15? Our markets will, I’m sure, continue to be highly competitive. Our customers will

continue to be demanding – rightly so – and despite improvements in the economy, consumer confidence

remains fragile. As we start our 30th year as a partnership business, Specsavers could not be better placed

to succeed.

In this new world, it is businesses with a strong value proposition – a genuine commitment to be on the side

of the customer – that will prevail. When customers need to get their eyes or ears tested or want to update

their frames, value is at the top of their shopping list – value not only in terms of affordable prices but also

great products and outstanding customer service.

At Specsavers, we prove that great prices need not come at some other cost to the customer. Whatever the

economic weather, we continue to set the benchmark for value, so that our customers get the best possible

deal with no compromise to quality or service. This is all made possible through the Specsavers partnership,

our network of talented, passionate and dedicated store directors, store teams and support teams. It is the

partnership that turns our plans into reality, taking us to new heights and better results.

I look forward to working with partners to achieve more incredible things this year.

John Perkins

Managing Director

Building on our success

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The Specsavers Board

Doug PerkinsChairman and Co-founder

A qualified and registered optometrist, Doug is responsible for the overall success of the Partnership. He also has specific responsibilities for driving professional standards within Specsavers and influencing the regulatory agenda across all our markets. He and his wife Mary established Specsavers in 1984 with its unique joint venture partnership concept and the vision of making eyecare more affordable. In 2006 and 2012 respectively, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University and from Plymouth University. Doug is also an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University and of Swansea University.

John PerkinsManaging Director

John joined Specsavers in 1998 and worked in UK stores, operations and the international teams before joining the Board as Commercial Director in 2003 and thereafter as Finance Director. In 2007, he was appointed Managing Director. A qualified chartered accountant with an MBA in retailing, John spent five years with Deloitte before joining Specsavers.

Dame Mary PerkinsCo-founder

Also a qualified and registered optometrist, Dame Mary monitors the culture and direction of the company. She plays an active role on a number of national and local charities and was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2007, as well as being appointed ambassador for Vision Aid Overseas in 2009. Dame Mary is an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Plymouth University in 2012.

Derek DysonGroup Retail Director

Derek joined Specsavers in 1998 with responsibility for UK operations. In addition to his responsibilities for retail advancement across our network, Derek assumed the role of General Manager of Australasia in January 2012 and, currently based in Melbourne, is leading the Australian and New Zealand business in its next phase of development. Before Specsavers, Derek spent 27 years with Tesco, progressing from trainee store manager to retail operations director.

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Pauline BestGroup HR Director

Pauline joined Specsavers in 2008 as Group HR Director, responsible for all elements of people and organisation strategy and activity across the group. Before joining Specsavers, she spent 20 years working in mobile communications, including 12 years with Vodafone, where she held positions of HR director UK, regional HR director (northern Europe, Middle East and Africa) and most recently their global leadership, talent and people capability director.

Richard Holmes Group Marketing Director

Richard joined the Board in 2007 as marketing director, responsible for the development of the brand and for marketing and PR activities in all countries. He previously worked for Boots, where he held a number of marketing roles over 10 years, including being responsible for the launch of their Advantage Card programme. Prior to this, he worked for 13 years for Unilever, based in London, Paris and Milan, focusing on fast-moving consumer goods.

Paul FusseyChief Financial Officer

Paul joined Specsavers in 2009 and has overall responsibility for the finance, tax, property, legal and IT functions of the business. He joined from Boots UK where he was finance director for the last three years and also held positions of divisional finance director for supply chain and shared services and managing director for Boots’ manufacturing division with operations in the UK, France, Germany, Poland and the Far East. Prior to Boots, Paul had various roles at MFI Furniture Group, including finance director for Hygena, Schreiber and supply chain.

Nigel ParkerChief Commercial Officer

Nigel joined the Board in 2006, taking on responsibility for product development, the sourcing of frames, contact lenses, spectacles and accessories and for procurement. Later, he took on responsibility for the group’s commercial and international expansion activity and, in 2012, assumed overall responsibility for our Nordic operations, as well as group manufacturing and distribution. He joined Specsavers in 1997 from Essilor, the world’s largest manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses, and became director of ophthalmic lens development and then director of commercial development.

Partnership opportunities with Specsavers

Contact details

GuernseySpecsavers Optical GroupLa VilliazeSt Andrew’sGY6 8YP

SouthamptonSpecsavers Optical SuperstoresForum 6Solent Business ParkWhiteleyHampshirePO15 7PA

NottinghamSpecsavers Optical SuperstoresCirrus House10 Experian WayNG2 1EP

Tel (UK callers) 0845 2020 241(International callers) Tel +44 (0)1481 1000 241

NetherlandsSpecsavers International BVHuizermaatweg 320-3221276 LJ HuizenTel +31 (0)35 628 8311

Copenhagen support officeSpecsaversStamholmen 153 4. sal2650 Hvidovre Denmark Tel +45 (0)36 94 4594

DenmarkLouis Nielsen A/SIndkildevej 2A9210 Aalborg SØTel +45 (0)70 13 0111

FinlandSpecsavers Finland OyNeilikkatie 1701300 VantaaTel +35 (0)810 218 4380

NorwaySpecsavers Norway ASGrenseveien 107BPO Box 0601EtterstadN-0601 OsloTel +47 (0)4830 9040

SwedenSpecsavers Sweden ABBox 205SE-401 23 GöteborgTel +46 (0)31 771 9800

Hong KongSpecsavers Procurement Asia LimitedUnit 1701, 17/F Lu PlazaNo. 2 Wing Yip StreetKwun TongKowloonTel +852 (0) 3719 0000

ChinaSpecsavers ProcurementAsia Representative OfficeNo. 2163 B/603Wan Yuan RoadShanghai201103

AustraliaSpecsavers Pty LtdThe G520 Graham StreetPort MelbourneVictoria 3207Tel +61 (0)3 8645 0700

New ZealandSpecsavers New Zealand LtdUnit A, 26 Triton DriveMairangi BayAuckland 0632Tel +64 (0)9 475 0250

UK and ROIOptical – David Martin+44 (0)7585 307897

Hearing – James Thompson+44 (0)845 2020 241+44 (0)7766 498259

Domiciliary – Nick Eaton+44 (0)7585 983129

NetherlandsOptical and hearingRobin LokeTel +31 61 503 4086

SpainJose Angel Moral-Tajadura+34 637 237320James West+44 (0)7879 430844

FinlandLasse Piira+358 40 0171 280

SwedenDaniel Åsberg+46 702 614 650

DenmarkKarsten Spaabaek+45 96325103

NorwayFrederik Strindberg+47 40 92 12 77

Australia and New ZealandRaj Sundarjee+61 (0)424 135485

Career opportunities with Specsaversspecsavers.com/careers

Specsavers

La Villiaze

St Andrew’s

Guernsey

Channel Islands

GY6 8YP

Tel +44 (0)207 2020 241

specsavers.com

Printed on recycled paper Cover: Specsavers store partners from across the globe.