Chris Bennett: Knowledge is power on the high street

Business intelligence is essential to practice planning and financial management and for the last 23 years the Optician Index has helped its readers benchmark their practice against the wider market.

Information, as they say, is power and Optician readers have helped us build a powerful data set through their participation in the Index. Optician now has a new approach to collecting business intelligence from its readers replacing the Index. This is called Market Monitor, and many of you have already taken part in our email survey.

Good information requires good data and for that Optician relies on you, our readers, to take part. The data we collect is to help you. We analyse it, chart it over time and serve it up