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Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston Strategies for Growth
If we at Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston (OCB) intend to be a profitable business with plans of continued growth, then we must make some fundamental changes in the way we operate our business. First we need to get back to the very basics and write a business plan! The Information contained in a business plan will help us to determine who we are, where we want to go, and how we intend to get there. This basic information will bring us focus, and act as a guide for our actions in the future. By defining our intended strategies for management, operations, sales, marketing, finance, competition, etc. we will then have what is necessary to layout a clear path for our future. If you all agree I shall begin this task immediately!
In addition to this business plan, we must also address the financial issues plaguing this organization. To illustrate some of these issues lets look at some of the trends here at OCB and within our Industry: For example, OCB’s clinic operations profitability in 1990 was 60%, and now in 1996 our profitability is only 37%, which is down 23 percentage points! We can blame some of this on rising costs of overhead, consumables, etc, however this is happening as the industry as a whole is growing 5% annually, and as our customer base, largely senior citizens, population is growing at almost 1% as year. We should be capitalizing on these industry trends, however, as you all know, not all the trends work in our favor. For example, our lifeblood, the Insurance company’s managed care organizations, and government healthcare reimbursement programs shows a downward trend of allowable payme ...