New Delhi: In a strategic refocus aimed at expanding the country's nascent eyecare market, Bausch & Lomb Eyecare (I) Pvt Ltd (B&L) has decided to launch a massive campaign to create awareness about vision correction on a mass scale. Called `VIEW'-an acronym for Vision Improvement Experts' Working-the project has been designed to allow B&L to reach out to a wider target audience.The change in strategy follows in the wake of new research from AC Nielsen. Hitherto, B&L's strategy was based on the assumption that only 10 million people in India needed vision correction, however, the new research indicated that about 20 million Indians were not even aware of their vision-related problems. ``The research was an eye-opener and showed how business modelling can go wrong,'' says B&L's managing director Mr JP Singh.
With VIEW, B&L is thus widening its view of the target audience. The new focus: to grow the vision correction market by reaching out to the masses and educating them on the importance of early detection and early referral of vision problems. Earlier, B&L's strategy was to increase contact-lens usage by pushing the the `fashion' plank and on getting spectacles-wearing consumers to convert to contact lenses.
Interestingly, B&L is even considering approaching the government for its support and involvement in the programme. ``We can't get the scale and volume on our own,'' says and adds ``Besides, there's an urgent need for the government to play a supportive role in creating eyecare awareness in the country. In fact, an eye checkup should be made mandatory in all schools and colleges.'' B&L refuses to share the total investment in the VIEW project.
To implement the programme, the company has brought together 14 leading eyecare practitioners from across the country, under a panel called the Vision Improvement Experts' Working (VIEW) Council. The VIEW panel will device strategies for generating awareness about eyecare across the country.
A leading gameplan which has already been rolled out: to sensitise and train teachers to screen students for an eye-test.
While the initiative has been test launched, last month, in two cities-Delhi and Bangalore-covering about 80 schools, the programme will be taken further to 8 cities in the coming few months. ``We're stepping up all our activities,'' says Mr Singh. The company also plans to run a public awareness campaign to propagate the issue. ``The aim is to bring it top of mind and create an eyecare wave in India within three years,'' says Mr Singh.
Other than that, the company will conduct eye camps, organise workshops to train practitioners, approach school and college students and get teachers more involved with the screening programme. The company also plans to distribute eyecare information booklets in the local language and use the Internet to flash eyecare awareness messages.
In business terms, the aim of the initiative is to grow the lens market which is currently limited to just six to seven lakh soft lens wearers. B&L is currently the market leader with 60 per cent market share. Driving the strategies are the fresh research findings on eyecare. The study which was conducted by AC Nielsen in the seven cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Hyderabd, Lucknow, Amritsar and Ahmedabad with a total of 32029 respondents alongwith the results of a B&L survey conducted among students in 85 schools across the country, revealed that:
50 per cent of the people who have a vision correction problem are not aware of it; * the maximum claimed vision correction rate has been only 23 per cent, i.e. only 23 out of 100 people realise that they need vision correction;the claimed vision correction rate of 18 per cent in the age group 15-35 years has not shown any improvement in the past two years;about half the people discovered the need for vision correction only in the age group of 11-15 years.Bausch & Lomb secured a turnover of Rs 60 crore in the financial 1999-2000 with vision care and surgical division each contributing around Rs 30 crore.
Contact lenses, a part of the vision care portfolio, account for around Rs 15 crore in sales. As part of the restructuring exercise, Bausch & Lomb India sold off the contact lens business to Bausch & Lomb Eyecare Pvt Limited in October 2000. The Indian operations are expected to grow by around 25-30 per cent (turnover-wise) in the next financial year.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
