About

Circus Group (XETRA: CA1) is a global leader in AI solutions and autonomous robotics, transforming the EUR 2.6 trillion food service sector through full autonomy. With its proprietary AI platform, CircusAI, and the world’s first commercially viable AI-robot in food service, CA-1, Circus is pioneering AI in food service to address industry-wide labor shortages.

More Facts on Circus Group:

• Business model: Develop AI-powered robotic systems for autonomous food service 

• Biggest department(s): Hardware & Engineering

• Managers involved: 8+ (for company-wide planning and decision making; department/team-individual planning left aside)

  
  

Challenges

Mounting people data requirements along with growing organization

Increased reporting duties and a growing organization added administrative overhead and complexity, demanding improved processes for HR controlling and workforce planning. The existing Excel-based headcount reporting and planning was not suitable anymore for Circus' stage:

• Manual Data Mapping: Mapping payroll data from the tax advisor into the target format wasn't easily doable, adding significant administrative burden and increasing the potential for errors.

• Complex and Outdated Reportings: Updating planning data to align with the latest hiring plans and integrating forecasting + budget information led to a time-consuming constant alignment and update cycle, leading to insufficient live data accuracy.

• Cumbersome KPI Tracking: Repeatedly updating critical KPIs, such as FTE developments and people costs, was time-consuming and error-prone, which led to less visibility on historical and forward-looking metrics and trends.

In order to report FTE developments, planned hires and people costs, I had to manually consolidate information from 4 different places: payroll, HRIS, ATS and other internal documentations.

Solution

Automating manual and error-prone processes

Victoria tested several systems before deciding for Basqo. Basqo convinced her threefold:Live integration: All changes that happen in the integrated systems (in this case Personio) are directly reflected in Basqo, replacing any manual consolidation and updating effortAutomatic controlling: Basqo automatically updates the forecast whenever changes (leaving dates, start dates) are registered, providing constant insights on deviations to the budgetSingle source of truth: Consolidates all key people cost data, including current employees, new hires, leavers, hiring pipeline, budgets, and approvals

All relevant stakeholders including Management, HR and Finance now have a highly accurate single source of truth for all people cost data and relevant workforce planning insights.

Victoria Annich

Chief of Staff at Circus

Outcome

Remarkably short time-to-value

Already after a few weeks, Basqo generated various productivity increases: Victoria strongly automated the error prone and manual HR controlling process giving her time to focus on other strategic tasks Preparing people cost reportings takes around 90% less time than previouslyCircus can accurately plan various workforce scenarios to stay agile.Excel sheets were abandoned and the hiring plan is now maintained within Basqo, drastically increasing workflow quality and alignment with Finance and management as well as the data quality, insights and accessibility.

The implementation happened within a day and even changes to our reporting structure can be easily updated in the settings.

Victoria Annich

Chief of Staff at Circus