Attending the London edition of the Specsavers Mini Professional Advancement Conference (MiniPac) last Sunday was an informative experience for me. Held at County Hall on the banks of the River Thames in central London, this was the 10th and final instalment of a series of face-to-face events that began back in February and have subsequently been held across the main geographical areas of the British Isles.
In-person optical events still retain a slight shimmer of novelty in this post-pandemic world. Going along to this one paid off journalistically in a way that can’t really be achieved online with a couple of chance meetings during the lunch break resulting in leads for future articles.
Beyond those lucky breaks and the lectures and workshops on offer, the event was of interest to me because it offered an opportunity to hopefully gain a little more insight into Specsavers, which of course holds such a significant position in the UK optical market.
Anyone who follows Optician’s news pages won’t be surprised that my overall impression was that the optometric retail behemoth is continuing to put its considerable resources into efficiently further developing enhanced optical services (EOS). At times during the day, I found myself drawing points of similarity and contrast between the MiniPac and some of the conferences aimed at the independent sector that I have attended over the years.
Obviously, independent events often focus on aspects of marketing or business management that are not as relevant to multiples but there is a fair bit of common ground. At the Specsavers event, I did note the sheer level of detail and specificity being offered on some subjects including diary management as it relates to offering EOS. Such a deep dive was perhaps only possible because all attendees (apart from me) were used to working with the same systems and company acronyms.
