LIVING THROUGH AND SURVIVING AN ECONOMIC SEA CHANGE Sonya Nightingale MCSP ACPAT Cat A The last eighteen months have been an extremely challenging time for many of us. The economic climate has battered our clients and they in turn have sought to reduce their costs and outgoings. This has an obvious consequence for us as service providers. In addition many insurance companies are looking ever more closely at how much and to whom they pay out; they have their own battles with falling revenue and tighter margins. With a dwindling pot of money the competition between practitioners sharpens and professionals will seek to protect their own income stream more fiercely. Throwing your hands in the air and saying it’s not fair, or that you don’t like it will receive little or no sympathy, it is, after all, just change. As practitioners we have to manage and adapt to this change and seek new opportunities while consolidating old ones. Very few people enjoy change but we adapt and change or sink without trace! It also helps to try and consider the problem from all angles, in other words put yourself in the purchaser’s shoes. Why should they choose an ACPAT physiotherapist? Why should they choose you? What makes you the obvious choice, and make sure that you can justify it! We are actually very fortunate in the current situation. Physiotherapy for animals is very much the trendy option at the moment. Owners are keen on it and vets and insurance companies are waking up to this. From the owners and insurance companies’ point of view it is also often seen as a slightly ‘cheaper’ option with a high quality outcome. However from the vets point of view it could be seen as a severe threat to their own income, with little real evidence to back it up and a confusing variety of practitioners.
Many other sectors have already gone through many similar changes, accountants and lawyers are just two examples, private human physiotherapists are also facing similar challenges albeit without the confusion caused by lack of protection of title. It is no longer enough to put up your brass plaque and be good at what you do, although it helps, you must be astute, business minded and adaptable as well! Business Fundamentals Each practice is unique therefore no solution is universal. This means following some basic business fundamentals and adapting them to individual market forces. The basic fundamentals are: Business Planning- creating a business plan and understanding how it works saves huge amounts of time and effort. The element of trial and error is greatly reduced so that a cost effective and efficient approach can be adopted. Marketing- this is about understanding your customers and analysing them, not about slogans and pretty adverts. Why do they choose you, what motivates them, how far do they travel, why your business and not another. Equally what is the competition up to and why do people choose them? Analysing this data allows you to plan and devise intelligent marketing strategies individual to you. These can then be tested, modified and refined until they succeed. Organisation development - you may not think of yourself as an organisation, but in business terms you are, albeit a small one. Organisations grow and develop in very predictable ways and often face the same very predictable challenges. This process can be taught and once understood
makes adapting to market changes a much easier and less stressful process. This may include completely changing the way you work from being a small one man band to selling out to a large group practice. These changes can be good and bad for both sides but preparation reduces the chance of disaster. Group Fundamentals ACPAT as an organisation is your group or trade association. This gives some power but also has its limitations from a business point of view. As an organisation we can support each other, compare notes and aid training. However there are rules enshrined in law that prevent united group action to reduce competition. Think about it from the other side, if businesses from a particular sector were allowed to unite and coordinate their actions to see off competition, then competition and therefore consumer choice would be restricted, innovation would reduce and prices would rise. Can you imagine what would happen to food prices if Tesco, Sainsbury’s and ASDA decided to work together until all the small chains folded? British Airways got into severe trouble a couple of years ago for trying to attempt price fixing with Virgin. In the UK this legislation is known as the Competition Act. There is no way around it, however much we may wish it. As a group the power comes from education and information to allow members to become more entrepreneurial and not from trying to kill off the competition. The Future? Now that is the question! Of course no one really knows but here are some well informed guesses.
16
ACPAT layout 5 copy.indd 16
31/8/10 08:48:10
