The power of many

When running an independent practice, it is ever so easy to become isolated and feel that life is just a series of battles to be fought, one after the other. A new competitor, a corporate coming to town, rising bills, business rates or coronavirus, it can be a struggle to make ends meet.

However, there is a single step that a practice can take to lower bills relating to supplies with minimal other changes. Very simply, by joining a buying group, where the power of many filters down to the individual, practices can take advantage of the pricing that large corporates can achieve.

A buying group is a very easy concept to explain: It is the joining together of a (large) number of independents, with no real individual commercial clout, into a single organisation that has more buying power and leverage with suppliers than they would each have ordinarily. It works because the buying group can use the total value of purchases that its members make to negotiate better terms with wholesalers. In doing so, the balance of power changes so that a single block of buyers forces wholesalers to fight for business – prices drop, subject to the norms of supply and demand of course.