Viewpoint: Independents need to be heard

Jim Lovell, the well-known American management consultant, once said there are three sorts of people in business: ‘There are people who make things happen, people who watch things happen and people who wonder what happened.’ I wonder in which category the average reader of this article would currently place the independent sector of the optical profession. Sure, there are one or two ‘movers and shakers’ out there who make things happen. However, I think most would place the sector in the middle category and, of course, some of our colleagues have fallen by the wayside, which suggests that they have been those who ‘wonder what happened’.