A CONFERENCE originally founded by a York business to help customers understand its software has this year attracted more than 300 delegates and a line-up of high-profile speakers.

Each year Optix, based at York Business Park, hosts a two- day conference for the optical market to promote its software, designed to provide business management services for opticians.

With a turnover of £2.5 million, and employing 42 people in York, Optix this year attracted former Government spin doctor Alastair Campbell as its keynote speaker for the conference.

The line-up also featured boom-to-bust jewellery retailer Gerald Ratner, Richard Noble, who amazed the audience with clips of his 1,000mph land- speed record car, brand guru Rita Clifton and Kevin Gaskell, who managed to turn around Porsche, BMW and Fairline Boats. During the conference, held at Chesford Grange country hotel in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, Optix revealed it will be implementing some system enhancements to its product, including a new MySight app that will enable patients to book and reschedule appointments from their mobile devices, and also search an online frame catalogue.

Trevor Rowley, managing director of Optix Software, who also owns Viewpoint opticians in York, said: “I’m grateful to my customers and the exhibitors, most of whom have become friends over the years. I hope they enjoyed the conference as much as I did.

“It started out as a way of being able to assist new customers with Optix software in a more relaxed informal setting and we wanted to make it more business orientated by adding some world-class speakers.

“It’s amazing how large the conference has grown and every year I think, how can I top that next year, because the speakers we have are just exceptional and leave most of us speechless at the end of theirs.”

Throughout the conference delegates were able to attend Optix software sessions to help gain further expertise and knowledge in recall and marketing.

Other exhibitors at the conference included, Abbott Medical, Access Group, Adaro, Alcon, Bausch & Lomb, Beausoleil, Caledonian Optical, Coopervision, Dell, Essilor, Hoya, Midoptic, Nidek, Nikon, Performance Finance, Rodenstock, Seiko, William Morris and Zeiss.

Mr Rowley came up with the idea of Optix in 2000, while running Viewpoint and an online lens retailer which he later sold.

He employed a team of developers to create a new software programme, and Optix was officially launched in 2003.