Signs that your strategy is not working well

Signs that your strategy is not working well

Optometry practices offer new advantages by focusing on niche markets and providing high levels of patient services that constantly respond to new market opportunities and patients’ conditions and needs. Like all small businesses, many Optometry practices do not survive past the first five years of providing services to the market. If your strategy is not working well, your practice will not be able to compete in the current and future market conditions and your mission will eventually end in a short period of time.

Three important signs that your strategy is not working well:

The strategy is not working at either one of three levels internally, externally, and in perpetual motion. Internally, the strategy is not becoming part of the culture and staff are not adopting an organizational behavior that increases team productivity and practice process efficiency. Externally, the practice is not being able to compete in the market conditions and is not providing or developing a competitive advantage over the near and immediate future. In terms of perpetual motion, the practice is not being able to constantly change and adapt to the changing nature of the market.

The strategy is not unique and it is based on technological competencies and productivity effectiveness. Those characteristics can at any time be copied by the competitors. Technology can be acquired by any Optometrist and productivity based on staff skills can be achieved by any practice. In this case, the strategy is not working because the practice does not have a clear and sustainable competitive advantage that provides a higher performance over other competitors in the same specialty.

The strategy is not producing high-performance levels of sustainable competitive advantage and profitability. If your practice is not remarkably outperforming others it will never gain a market share that will establish strong operations and product niche. Low productivity, low return on investment, low patient retention, low patient development related to new and specialty conditions, low revenues are all signs of a stalling strategy.