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48 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition | 3/2017 Photograph: Pixabay/stevepb Eleven tips for success in your dental clinic Part IV: ROI and PEST By Dr Anna Maria Yiannikos, Germany & Cyprus Welcome to the fourth part of the series Eleven tips for success in your dental clinic. Our new tips are about knowing how to choose the right in- vestment for your clinic in order to have the greatest possible ROI! Now what is ROI? ROI stands for the acronym Return on Investment. Let’s explain the term a little bit further. It shows our clinic’s ability to use its as- sets to generate profi ts. How many of you have bought a new equip- ment bursting with excitement and, six months later, had completely forgotten about it and never used it? How many of you bought an intra- oral camera and are still using it? I will present to you now a very unique protocol that I use every time I purchase or I am thinking of purchasing new equipment or mak- ing an investment at my clinic. This protocol includes four components: 1. Patients 2. Your clinic 3. The environment 4. The actual investment. Now, for example, you are thinking of buying a new piece of laser equip- ment: Observe your patients’ needs Which patient needs are we going to cover with laser treatments? Let’s brainstorm a little bit more on this! By choosing a laser treatment in- stead of a conventional treatment, we can cover their needs for: mini- mal pain, minimal or no anaesthesia, no drill sound, less fear, anxiety or stress, minimal or no bleeding, faster healing, reduced postoperative com- plications, reduced chair time. We are responsible to choose the in- vestment with the highest ROI and we can do it by asking our patients for their needs based on an effi cient protocol, for example by asking them questions such as: What are the 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 tech- nology because your friend/com- petitor/colleague has done it! Why? Because he does not have your pa- tients. Please always remember this, it is very important! Furthermore, you can assess your patients by yourself: What is your main target group? To which soci- ety groups do they belong? Are they afraid of the dental procedures or are they comfortable with them? Do you have a lot of patients and need to make more fi llings 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 elements: our strengths, weak- nesses, opportunities and threats as dentists. And we have already talked about it in the fi rst part of this series (please see laser 3/2015). Analyse your environment The third component of the protocol that I would love to share with you is PEST analysis. PEST stands for politi- cal, economic, social and technologi- cal environment. By knowing poten- tial problems in advance, you will be more prepared and capable of fi nd- ing the correct solutions. By making effective use of PEST analysis, 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 much more likely to be success- ful than if your activities oppose it. Good use of PEST analysis helps you to avoid taking action which is condemned to failure for reasons be- yond your control. PEST is useful when you start op- erating in a new country or region. Applying PEST analysis helps you to break free of unconscious assump- tions, and helps you to quickly adapt to the realities of the new environ- ment. Its four components include: – Political aspects: government type and stability, regulation and de-regulation trends, social and em- ployment legislation, tax policy and trade/tariff controls, environmental and consumer-protection legisla- tion, likely changes in the political environment – Economic aspects: stage of busi- ness cycle, current and projected economic growth, infl ation and interest rates, unemployment and labor supply, labor costs, tax system (corporate tax: 10% in Cyprus), likely changes in the economic environ- ment – Socio-cultural aspects: population growth rate and age profi le, popu- lation health, education and social mobility, and attitudes to these, population employment patterns, job market freedom and attitudes to work, press attitudes, public opinion, social attitudes and social taboos, socio-cultural changes – Technological environment: im- pact of emerging technologies, im- pact of Internet, reduction in com- munications costs and increased remote working. Some years ago, Cyprus held the mo- nopoly in communication services, but now the prices have dropped dramatically since there are a lot of players in the market. For example changes, in the government policy may affect the nature of treatments that may be available, for exam- ple under the NHS. Changes in the economic climate can have a direct impact on the spending power of pa- tients. The so-called ‘feel good factor’ amongst home owners when inter- est rates are low and house price in- fl ation is high is one example of how the state of the economics affects the mood of consumers. Social changes can also affect our practice. People are tending to work longer hours. This could have an ef- fect on your practice opening hours. Or maybe there are many people in your area who are older than 60 years old and, as a consequence, there is an increased need to treat this group of people. Or there are less births and thus there is no need of orthodontists. Technology has made a huge impact on our lives and the internet in our workplace. We need to raise the ex- pectations of our patients, using for example Google advertisements, Fa- cebook pages etc. Make an investment The last element of this unique pro- tocol is the investment itself. We should see to regaining our money for this investment, as well as when and how we can do that! I have de- signed a model that could assess whether a dental investment is both viable and profi table according to the data of each clinic. For this, I choose ROI and payback as param- eters of assessment. You are going to learn how to choose your invest- ment like an expert by applying the ELIT (Invest Like an Expert Table) ta- ble excel formula. The above protocol is one of the tools that you can be taught by the DBA educational programme full cours- es and seminars, including how to design your own ELIT. In the next issue, we will reveal two brand new tips and practical solutions that will help you access new opportunities and potentials of your dental clin- ics and change the way you see and make business in dentistry. Until then, please remember that not only are you the dentist in your clinic, but you are also its manager and leader. You can always send me your ques- tions and request for more informa- tion and guidance at: dba@yiannikosdental.com or via our Facebook account. Looking forward to our next trip of business growth and educational de- velopment! Dr Anna Maria Yian- nikos, Adjunct Faculty Member of AALZ at RWTH Aachen University Campus, Germany DDS, LSO, MSc, MBA dba@yiannikosdental.com www.dbamastership.com