A YORK retail optician’s quest to find suitable software led to the birth of a whole new venture which is bidding for the Technology Business of the Year title at The Press Business Awards.

“Convinced that we could not be the only optical business that would benefit from an innovative business management system, we set about creating the software platform that later became Optix Software,” the entry declares.

The result was a vision of retail stores linked by high-speed connections, an innovative concept in 2001. “The initial pilot versions of Optix were released to the industry in 2003 and this was restricted to an in-store system as there was still no sign of broadband being released by BT.

“This solution met with modest success and allowed us to learn both from feedback and our experience of building the infrastructure needed to support the system. Meanwhile development continued behind the scenes on our connected system, which was finally launched in 2007,” it adds.

“To say that our offering was well received within the industry would be an understatement. We allowed the more progressive business owners to manage their organisations in a way that had never before been possible.

“The most expensive aspect of any high street optical business is the cost of professional staff, and Optix allows use of this expensive resource to be optimised across multiple sites by utilising the global diary views that we offer. Likewise, spectacle frames that were not moving in one store could be relocated to another outlet where they were selling well. The list of benefits was endless.

“Their customers could visit any store within the group for services and their records would be immediately available. A small group around a town could now work as a single entity instead of a set of stand-alone outlets.”

Optix is a software as a service model and has always been sold on a rental basis, even to its largest multinational customers.

“Having launched with such a huge technical head start on the other systems in our sector, we have worked hard to maintain that advantage. Optix has grown to be the clear market leader in our sector and our technology allows us to offer real-time links into the main industry suppliers, direct debit systems, mailing services, email, SMS, etc – indeed everything that our customers require to make their life easier and more profitable.

“Our most recent innovation has been MySight, which is an online patient portal that allows the end customers to access their own records online, update their details and arrange their own appointments.

“This has been successful beyond even our expectations and in itself has brought us more business as no other practice management software can offer this service. Indeed, if you visit the web site of any large corporate optician in the UK they still do not offer a true online booking service – only Optix customers have this facility.”

This success has been achieved without a single salesperson being employed, yet Optix has a customer base extending from small start-ups to ASDA/Walmart.