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26 laser 2 2016 | practice management Eleven tips for success in your dental clinic Part IV: ROI and PEST Author: Dr Anna Maria Yiannikos, Germany & Cyprus Welcome to the fourth part of the series Eleven tips forsuccessinyourdentalclinic.Ournewtipsareabout knowing how to choose the right investment for your clinic in order to have the greatest possible ROI! Now what is ROI? ROI stands for the acronym ReturnonInvestment.Let’sexplainthetermalittlebit further. It shows our clinic’s ability to use its assets to generateprofits.Howmanyofyouhaveboughtanew equipment bursting with excitement and, six months later, had completely forgotten about it and never used it? How many of you bought an intra-oral cam- era and are still using it? Iwillpresenttoyounowaveryuniqueprotocolthat IuseeverytimeIpurchaseorIamthinkingofpurchas- ing new equipment or making an investment at my clinic. This protocol includes four components: 1. Patients 2. Your clinic 3. The environment 4. The actual investment. Now,forexample,youarethinkingofbuyinganew piece of laser equipment: Observe your patients’ needs Which patient needs are we going to cover with la- ser treatments? Let’s brainstorm a little bit more on this! By choosing a laser treatment instead of a con- ventional treatment, we can cover their needs for: minimal pain, minimal or no anaesthesia, no drill sound, less fear, anxiety or stress, minimal or no bleeding, faster healing, reduced postoperative complications, reduced chair time. We are responsible to choose the investment with thehighestROIandwecandoitbyaskingourpatients for their needs based on an efficient protocol, for ex- amplebyaskingthemquestionssuchas:Whatarethe most important treatments for you? Are you getting what you are expecting from us? What new treat- ments and trends are you interested in? Never ever buy a new piece of technology because your friend/competitor/colleague has done it! Why? Because he does not have your patients. Please al- ways remember this, it is very important! Furthermore, you can assess your patients by yourself: What is your main target group? To which society groups do they belong? Are they afraid of the dental procedures or are they comfortable with them?Doyouhavealotofpatientsandneedtomake more fillings in less time? Know thyself and thy clinic You can achieve this by learning in which areas we should improve ourselves (clinic) and in which areas we are in advantage. We can do that by using a very essential tool every six or twelve months, the so- called SWOT analysis. This is composed of four ele- ments:ourstrengths,weaknesses,opportunitiesand threatsasdentists.Andwehavealreadytalkedabout it in the first part of this series (please see laser 3/2015). Analyse your environment The third component of the protocol that I would lovetosharewithyouisPESTanalysis.PESTstandsfor political,economic,socialandtechnologicalenviron- ment.Byknowingpotentialproblemsinadvance,you will be more prepared and capable of finding the cor- rect solutions. By making effective use of PEST anal- ysis, you ensure that what you are doing is positively aligned with the forces of change that are affecting our world. By taking advantage of change, you are 22016