Engine Scaled Planning Through Scenario Modelling, Cutting Scenario Creation Time from 8 Hours to 1. Read their story
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Planning at the Speed of Change.
How Engine reduced planning bottlenecks and improved operational decision-making in a fast-changing environment through scenario modelling.
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Background
Engine, a fast-growing travel platform supporting 300-400 FTE across internal and BPO operations, faced constant operational change driven by automation initiatives, new product launches, evolving travel demand, and shifting staffing assumptions. Traditional spreadsheet-based planning processes made it difficult to keep pace, with workforce teams spending excessive time rebuilding models instead of evaluating operating trade-offs and planning scenarios.
Business Outcomes with Cinareo
● Scenario creation reduced from 8 hours to ~1 hour
● Planning request turnaround improved from 1 week to 24-48 hours
● Planning throughput increased from 1 to 5 requests per week
● 35 hours/week reallocated from manual model building to strategic analysis
● Staffing forecast variance reduced from ~20% to <10%
● Workforce Management elevated from a reporting function to a strategic business partner
Changes happen very frequently, daily really. As a startup, there is a strong need for our staffing model to constantly evolve. We ended up getting roughly 35 hours a week back that could be redirected into operational planning and analysis instead of rebuilding models.
— Ryan Rosso, Sr. Manager of Workforce Management Engine.
The Challenges
Every new request meant rebuilding models from scratch. Managing multiple versions became increasingly difficult, turnaround times slowed, and planning teams were spending more time maintaining spreadsheets than evaluating operational decisions. In a high-growth environment where priorities changed frequently, the process was becoming unsustainable.
The Solution
Using Cinareo, Engine modernized its spreadsheet-heavy planning workflows with a faster, more flexible approach across strategic and tactical planning functions, including capacity planning, budgeting, what-if scenario modelling, hiring analysis, and recruitment and training planning. Within 24 hours of onboarding, the team was running live operational scenarios using existing forecasting inputs.
Results
Instead of rebuilding models every time assumptions changed, Cinareo enabled Engine to rapidly evaluate staffing trade-offs, automation delays, hiring implications, operational risks, and customer experience impacts before decisions were finalized.
Planning evolved from a reactive spreadsheet exercise into a continuous operational function that could keep pace with how the business actually operated. Rather than reporting on decisions after they were made, the team became more involved in helping leadership evaluate options while decisions were still open.
Cinareo helps workforce planning teams spend less time rebuilding and more time evaluating operational decisions. Reach out if planning requests are starting to outpace your team’s ability to respond.
Engine didn’t just speed up planning.
They changed how planning supports decisions.