How to survive the financial squeeze

The Laser and Light sector has been through some tough times in recent years. A continuing recession combines with Government deregulation to produce the ‘perfect storm' for professional practitioners. Low-cost providers pop up all around like unwelcome mushrooms in everything from hair and tattoo removal to medical injectables - supported by the likes of Groupon and predicated on a general dumbing-down in the media of the issues surrounding what are potentially harmful, medical interventions.

 
So, just as demand for our services comes under most pressure from squeezed consumer wallets, government's controversial deregulation (and failure to regulate injectables) allows absolutely anyone to use any laser device for any purpose without any training, thereby opening the floodgates to Chinese manufacturers selling sub-standard equipment to new, low-cost providers. This could be economic policy written in Beijing.

The good news is that, like mushrooms, low-quality providers soon disappear on their own account; the bad news is that others appear to take their place. So, how do we deal with this double assault on our business and to our professional standing?

At Mapperley Park, we have countered the flood of cheap, inexpert service providers not by competing with them but by separating ourselves in terms of service, quality, safety and cost. We have invested in new technology - both high-end lasers and in creating a locally commanding Web presence - in order to promote our message that while we won't be the cheapest, we will be the best. This strategy has allowed us to increase our prices in line with inflation, rather than reducing them to that of the lowest common denominator and while we have seen volumes fall from the peak of 2007, what we do is worth us doing and we are a more profitable business than we were at the peak of the boom. Our solution: keep service quality high and differentiate that service from the rest in terms of price and message.

Training in a recession

In our training business, we have also seen volumes fall as regulatory training requirements have been removed and competition increased. However, we have met these challenges not by reducing costs but by increasing value and relevance such that we now believe our training courses to be absolutely the best in the business - and the feedback from those courses supports this belief.

Now, as an increased appetite among providers to invest in training becomes apparent, we are investing to support an eventual return to growth in the sector and consequently, we have a number of new developments for Autumn 2011 and 2012.

 
In recognition of this training excellence, the insurance industry leader, Hamilton Fraser, have also accredited us as a Hamilton Fraser Training Partner and offer a 10% premium discount for any person or organisation sending an individual to one of our training events , so there is even more reason to engage in our training programme than ever.