On Sight Opticians have over 20 years’ experience in providing corporate eyecare services to factories, laboratories, and industrial sites, with a now well-established reputation for efficient and reliable eye tests, optician services, glasses and office eyewear.
Seven years ago, company director Ivor Howells reached out to Ultimate Finance who provided the business with a £15k Invoice Finance facility to bridge a gap in cashflow that would help cover operational expenditure in busy periods. Ivor explains, “Ultimate Finance’s Invoice Factoring allowed us provide our customers with the services they required, in the knowledge that we had access to the cashflow we needed and without concern for payment schedules and any peaks and troughs in demand”.
The facility helped the business go from strength to strength through the years with On Sight Opticians appreciating the value of simple access to funding alongside the dedicated support provided by their Relationship Manager Lesley Mouncher, who adds, “Our tailored facility was the perfect fit for their requirements, and we have built such a strong and enjoyable business relationship together over the years through our service-led approach and regular catch ups, be it on-site or via virtual calls”.
However, their growth journey was suddenly slowed in 2020 when lockdown measures to halt the spread of the Covid-19 virus forced them to close their premises across the country over night, leading to a loss of income and the beginning of what appeared to be a long period of instability.
Thinking on their feet, the On Sight Opticians team started to look into ways they could reinvent their services and rebuild the business to accommodate the changes in working patterns and restrictions forced on to companies almost overnight. They secured a Bounce Back Loan through one of the Government backed schemes and used the funds to purchase an ex-police Mobile Incident Room and spent the months of the 2020 spring lockdown to turn the “prison van” into a fully self-contained mobile opticians’ facility that would allow them to provide their existing services off premises and fully within the restrictions mandated at the time.
Ivor adds, “We could not have taken all of the upfront costs of reintroducing our clinic with such uncertainty at the time surrounding further lockdowns and disruptions, without knowing that our Invoice Finance facility would be supporting us with a reliable income stream as soon as we were fully back in business. This allowed us to push boundaries to get back to trading without the worry of having to also keep up with a growing pipeline of expenditure at the same time”.
Fast forward to today, and On Sight Opticians have recovered almost all their previous business, and the mobile unit they had originally conceived as a temporary stop gap proved a very popular selling point, opening the doors to new markets and setting them apart from their competitors. Lesley comments, “Ivor and his team showed incredible business acumen and resilience, and their efforts truly paid off. At Ultimate Finance we were proud to provide our full and unwavering support to businesses like On Sight Opticians during such a challenging period of uncertainty, and it’s great to see them bounce back so well”.
Ivor concludes, “We are now fully back on our growth journey with a tangible presence and a reinforced brand, and we have the reassurance that, should we get a new opportunity that may stretch our resources a little too thin, Ultimate Finance’s facility will allow us to scale up our offer and keep up with our ambitions”.
Find out more about how Invoice Finance helps keep businesses moving.
