Case Study
Revolutionising Monitoring, Observability and Automation at Specsavers
- Real-time Monitoring
- Consolidation and Cost Optimisation
- Automation & Operational Efficiency
Case Study Introduction
Setting the Scene
Specsavers is a global provider of optical and hearing care, serving millions of customers across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. As its business and digital services continued to grow, so did the complexity of its technology environment.
Specsavers was relying on more than 20 monitoring tools across its infrastructure, applications, security and operations. This created data silos and made it increasingly difficult for teams to gain a complete view of service health, identify issues quickly and understand their impact.
With digital services playing an increasingly important role in the customer journey, Specsavers needed a more unified approach to monitoring and observability. Its journey with Splunk, supported by Somerford, began with the goal of bringing these different data sources together and creating a single, real-time view of its technology environment.
Requirements
Specsavers needed a scalable monitoring solution that could bring together data from across its increasingly complex technology environment and provide teams with a clearer, real-time view of service health.
The aim was to consolidate multiple monitoring tools, improve visibility across infrastructure, applications and security, and reduce the time required to identify and resolve issues. Specsavers also wanted to move towards a more proactive approach, using greater visibility and automation to identify potential problems before they impacted customers.
With limited internal Splunk expertise at the time, Specsavers also needed specialist support to help develop its Splunk capabilities and maximise the value of its investment.
Business Challenges
As Specsavers expanded its global operations and digital services, the complexity of its technology environment made it increasingly difficult to maintain a clear view of overall service health.
The use of multiple monitoring tools created fragmented data and duplicated capabilities across the global IT estate. Teams often had to investigate issues across different platforms, making it harder to identify root causes quickly and increasing the time spent diagnosing and resolving problems.
At the same time, Specsavers was moving from legacy infrastructure towards cloud-based environments and microservices, creating further complexity and increasing the need for end-to-end visibility across interconnected systems.
For a business where technology plays an important role in both online and in-store customer experiences, delays in identifying performance issues could have a direct impact on customers and the wider business. Specsavers therefore needed to move away from reactive troubleshooting towards a more connected and proactive approach to monitoring and service management.
Unified Visibility
Faster Resolution
Automation & Efficiency
Testimonial
Solutions
Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) was developed and deployed to provide greater visibility into the health and performance of Specsavers' IT services and applications. Alongside ITSI, Splunk Enterprise Security and Observability capabilities were introduced across the wider environment, helping Specsavers bring together data from infrastructure, applications, security and business services.
The consolidation of multiple monitoring tools into a single platform gave Specsavers a clearer, real-time view of its environment. This reduced the need to investigate issues across multiple systems and enabled teams to identify, analyse and respond to incidents more efficiently.
As Specsavers continued its move towards cloud and microservices, Observability provided greater end-to-end visibility across increasingly complex environments. Somerford also provided augmented support, project services and technical enablement, helping Specsavers' internal teams develop their Splunk capabilities and continue to expand the platform into new use cases.
Dedicated Support Desk
Health Check
Priority Resourcing
Training
Outcomes
By consolidating its monitoring environment and expanding its use of Splunk ITSI, Enterprise Security and Observability, Specsavers has developed a more proactive and connected approach to managing its technology environment. The platform now provides real-time visibility across critical infrastructure and business services, helping teams identify and respond to issues before they impact customers.
10x faster MTTR
25,000 hours saved per month
500+ major incidents prevented
Real-time visibility
Listen to our Podcasts with Specsavers to Learn More
In embracing Splunk and partnering with Somerford, Specsavers revolutionised its operational landscape. With Somerford's guidance, Specsavers efficiently harnessed Splunk's capabilities, optimising both internal operations and customer experiences. For more information or to explore how Specsavers achieved these remarkable results in more detail, listen to the podcasts below:
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Additional Resources
Splunk Professional Services
Splunk Observability Suite
Seeing Is Believing: Unified Observability In Action | Report
Get in Touch to Learn More
Specsavers' Requirements
In the summer of 2019, Somerford was engaged by Splunk to provide support to Specsavers with an IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) proof of value. Since then, Somerford has continued to support Specsavers across Splunk Enterprise Security (ES), ITSI, and Observability. This support has included a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution roll-out, ITSI development, and Cloud migrations and consolidations.
What Was Achieved
These efforts have ultimately resulted in the deployment of a single, comprehensive monitoring solution across Specsavers' entire business, including:
Enabling Real-Time Monitoring
Utilising Monitoring Solutions
Levelling Up Skills
Business Challenges
Specsavers' IT team grappled with the need to analyse and consolidate numerous system and security logs. The existence of disparate monitoring tools for different aspects of their operations resulted in prolonged diagnosis times due to the requirement of examining multiple logs. Recognising the need for enhanced efficiency, the Service Management team, in collaboration with the InfoSec team, opted to leverage Splunk for log aggregation and analysis. Their journey with Splunk began in the UK and has expanded globally over the years.
Tool duplication across global IT estate
Moving from legacy infrastructure to cloud & microservices
Tool sprawl - replacing CA Tech
Consolidation of Tools
Incident Response Enhancement
Value of Business-Level KPIs
Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Somerford's Essential Support
Listen to our Podcast with Specsavers to Learn More
In embracing Splunk and partnering with Somerford, Specsavers revolutionised its operational landscape. With Somerford's guidance, Specsavers efficiently harnessed Splunk's capabilities, optimising both internal operations and customer experiences. For more information or to explore how Specsavers achieved these remarkable results in more detail, listen to the podcast below: