Carl Moore

I’ve been racing historic/vintage sport cars for nearly as long as I’ve been in the contact lens business [48 years]. Since my recent retirement, I have more time to race, but I’d like to cast one more glance through the rear view mirror at the business I’m leaving behind.

Nearly 50 years ago, Horace Tiret, a CPA and one of the founders of Con-Cise, told me, “Even when the customer is wrong, he’s right.” Those words guided me throughout my career, which spanned PMMA lenses, the introduction of soft contact lenses, major consolidation in the industry and other technological improvements and market shifts

Over the decades Con-Cise and other distributors were able to maximize their advantages. Notably, in the early days of hard contact lenses, distributor manufacturing labs developed close relationships with the doctors. Soft lens manufacturers began to look to distributors to leverage those relationships in soft lens purchasing in a more cost effective manner than manufacturers could provide.

Clearly, soft lens manufacturers must invest in marketing, R&D and production. In the past, manufacturers who were the first to market with a new technology-- and therefore could command a premium price--typically took their product directly to the doctors. But as the distributor channel matured and became more sophisticated, the manufacturers better appreciated the added value distributors bring to the table. The traditional new product cycle--first go direct, then expand to distributors--has diminished over the years and now manufacturers often speed the release of new products through the distributors.

Telephone customer service reps and field sales reps are an enormous expense for manufacturers. Distributors help manufacturers save shipping, distribution and sales costs while helping eyecare practitioners gain volume discounts and office efficiencies through purchase consolidation--even if they’re smaller accounts. That’s one area where distributors have been able to add value to the industry, and as a group they now account for nearly two thirds of all soft lens purchases by independents.

As manufacturers have consolidated, distributors have done the same. A decade ago, there were nearly 50 distributors. Now there are about a dozen, with a half dozen big ones. Con-Cise, which recently merged with ABB, had always focused on customer relationships. The ABB-Con-Cise merger makes the company the dominant distributor nationally, able to make large investments in automation, sales support and ECP education that will enable it to deliver unsurpassed service. It will raise the bar for distributor service and competitors will be forced to respond, which will benefit every doctor relying on distributors.

I can’t say that there’s one thing I did right or that I was visionary. The company was built on the most fundamental premises: take care of your customer and be honest. I am confident the new company will continue the tradition.

Carl Moore was formerly president of Con-Cise, which recently merged with ABB to form ABB-Con-Cise.