Essilor is training unemployed or underemployed youth to conduct refractive tests

[Chris Ryser]

Essilor sharpens initiatives to tap rural buyers

By Sangeetha G. Feb 16 2015
Tags: News

Leading ophthalmic optics company Essilor is deploying several rural initiatives to grow the market. It hopes to reach out to at least half of the population which does not have access to ophthalmic optics by 2025.

The onus of developing the market largely falls on the leader. In the case of Essilor, there is a huge untapped market - of the 500 million people who need vision correction only 100 million have access to ophthalmic lenses. Essilor has been taking up initiatives to reach out to the rural population.

Essilor is training unemployed or underemployed youth in remote villages to conduct refractive tests. After the short-term course, the youth are encouraged to start micro enterprises in their respective villages. While they have to take care of the basic infrastructure, Essilor offers them refractive lenses and equipment. Essilor has trained around 500 such youth and over 400 of them have started such micro enterprises in remote villages of Uttar Pradesh and Rajastan.

“We will be expanding the programme to cover villages in other states as well. The youth go for asset-light enterprises by either conducting door-to-door tests or setting up a testing centre at homes,” said Jayanth Bhuvaraghan, managing director of Essilor India.

source : http://www.mydigitalfc.com/news/essilor-sharpens-initiatives-tap-rural-buyers-692

[HindSight2020]

Will they train and provide services and equipment to me? My village is in a country called Canada, where there are many less fortunate people in need of ophthalmic services but unable to afford it. Canada is next door the United States, where they also have many of these villages full of people in need.

[SharonB]

Will they train and provide services and equipment to me? My village is in a country called Canada, where there are many less fortunate people in need of ophthalmic services but unable to afford it. Canada is next door the United States, where they also have many of these villages full of people in need.

+1000

[optimensch]

" Uttar Pradesh and Rajastan"

What does a complete pair of glasses currently sell for in the remote villages in Uttar Pradesh.....and how will these villagers contribute to the stock price and market cap of Essilor International and enrich shareholders adequately? I think it would take the whole village to get together to purchase a single pair of Crizal Prevencia coated single vision lenses......
Per capita GDP in the whole region (not the remote villages....) is US 460$ per year.

What % of percapita GDP does Essilor want to extract from the villagers for a pair of Glasses

I know in the past E has charged me wholesale more than that for a single pair of lenses.....This doesnt compute.

[Craig]

Essilor sharpens initiatives to tap rural buyers

By Sangeetha G. Feb 16 2015
Tags: News

Leading ophthalmic optics company Essilor is deploying several rural initiatives to grow the market. It hopes to reach out to at least half of the population which does not have access to ophthalmic optics by 2025.

The onus of developing the market largely falls on the leader. In the case of Essilor, there is a huge untapped market - of the 500 million people who need vision correction only 100 million have access to ophthalmic lenses. Essilor has been taking up initiatives to reach out to the rural population.

Essilor is training unemployed or underemployed youth in remote villages to conduct refractive tests. After the short-term course, the youth are encouraged to start micro enterprises in their respective villages. While they have to take care of the basic infrastructure, Essilor offers them refractive lenses and equipment. Essilor has trained around 500 such youth and over 400 of them have started such micro enterprises in remote villages of Uttar Pradesh and Rajastan.

“We will be expanding the programme to cover villages in other states as well. The youth go for asset-light enterprises by either conducting door-to-door tests or setting up a testing centre at homes,” said Jayanth Bhuvaraghan, managing director of Essilor India.

source : http://www.mydigitalfc.com/news/essilor-sharpens-initiatives-tap-rural-buyers-692

I guess they are telling us that OD's are a thing of the past! Glad I am not the only dinosaur industry and wonder how I can refract now and how the OD's are feeling about this?

Comments from OD's who continue to support E.

THIS IS A GAME CHANGER AROUND THE WORLD; PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT HAPPENS!

[scriptfiller]

I would be curious to what are the laws in India regarding optometry and opticianry.

Obviously they wouldn't be able to get away with this in the US or the EU. 100 million spectacles at $2-3 per pair is a nice way to fatten one's bottom line

[lensguy]

Wow,
After reading some of these comments, Essilor needs to come on this board to teach people vision.

sad,

[idispense]

what's your problem with this ? It's exactly the way Imperial gained their monopoly. Have you all forgotten your roots in North America ?

[Barry Santini]

Refraction is, and always has been, NOT eye health gatekeeping. Although it can't be entirely separated from the same, it can and should be allowed in situations like these to allow people to see.

Viewing this from a perspective of traditional, evolved, holistic western optometry reminds me of how some newsprint-based companies used to MAKE you pay and subscribe to a print-based copy of their format in order to access their content on the convenience of the web.

B

[MikeAurelius]

"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your lives it will creep
It starts when you are always afraid"

[Dirk]

My first reaction to this article was cynical, being suspicious of anything Essilor (or any large corporation) does. However, if it helps the population to get basic eyecare that most of us take for granted then great. I have personally refracted immigrants from third world countries who were only to happy to be able to see the world around them for the first time. I don`t care if Essilor sees this as purely an investment disguised as charity, and i don`t regard this as a threat to my profession.

[HindSight2020]

Wow,
After reading some of these comments, Essilor needs to come on this board to teach people vision.

sad,

India is high volume, 2nd highest in population globally. This is 10% charity and 90% business. By setting up locals to perform the refractions, giving them the equipment and tools to perform the work, then ensuring every pair of lenses is processed through them because the owner is locked into a supply agreement. Seems pretty accurate to me.

Certainly the lenses will not be 'donated'. It's pure volume and this is the cost of entering such a market.

Please enlighten us...

[HindSight2020]

My first reaction to this article was cynical, being suspicious of anything Essilor (or any large corporation) does. However, if it helps the population to get basic eyecare that most of us take for granted then great. I have personally refracted immigrants from third world countries who were only to happy to be able to see the world around them for the first time. I don`t care if Essilor sees this as purely an investment disguised as charity, and i don`t regard this as a threat to my profession.

Not a threat unless you move to India.

[drk]

India is a very impoverished country, no? Westerners are always running around doing medical humanitarian work. Probably a nice thing to do, unless they kill you.

Essilor is, like Hindsight says, a money-hungry company. They certainly are viewing India as an emerging market and are making an "investment" in the future, with a little humanitarian PR attached.

Nobody is harmed. At this point. So put me in Dirk's camp.

[EyeManDan]

pretty ingenious on their part, creating a market.

[newguyaroundhere]

Essilor in India, Lux in the Gambia and China, all charitable initiatives with the ultimate goal of developing untapped markets for the future.

[MikeAurelius]

pretty ingenious on their part, creating a market.

CREATING???

On what planet do you live?

Perhaps you mean 'servicing' a market. The market has been there all the time. They just got there first to grab a goodly chunk of it.

Why all this paranoia about something that is happening on the opposite side of the planet, in a country that ISN'T the US?

[lensguy]

India is high volume, 2nd highest in population globally. This is 10% charity and 90% business. By setting up locals to perform the refractions, giving them the equipment and tools to perform the work, then ensuring every pair of lenses is processed through them because the owner is locked into a supply agreement. Seems pretty accurate to me.

Certainly the lenses will not be 'donated'. It's pure volume and this is the cost of entering such a market.

Please enlighten us...

I see this as, yes an investment to develop (from almost scratch) a new market....Brilliant.

I also see this as contributing to the overall development of any severely underdeveloped region, with all kinds of positive benefits for that country.
It appears so far it is 90% charity at minimum, so far, with the LONG term goal of an ROI.

[lensguy]

a little more perspective:

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/en...n_for_the_poor

[Chris Ryser]

I see this as, yes an investment to develop (from almost scratch) a new market....Brilliant.

I also see this as contributing to the overall development of any severely underdeveloped region, with all kinds of positive benefits for that country.
It appears so far it is 90% charity at minimum, so far, with the LONG term goal of an ROI.

India is very well on the way to do the same what Japan did shortly after the last World War and then followed by China which is the dominating industrial Nation today.

Many of the worlds largest corporations have already been banking on India's future. This future will be much closer than it took China to reach. For year it was very hard to sell and ship good to India which has now totally changed policies to import goods an technologies. Their government is now fully open for industrial advancement.

Essilor purchased a few years ago the GKB opticals which has optical labs all over the country and also started the now largest on-line optical, http://www.gkboptical.com/eyeframes/ in the worlds most populous country.

I can see the trend Essilor is banking on. In India they start eye testing by under privileged youngsters, probably with their latest equipment and the process the glasses through their on-line optical. No more opticians needed, as their probably never were any or at least only very few. If the system works it can be applied anywhere in the world.

I just received a full list of Essilor owned companies from a friend dated 2003 and there are about 400 optical companies listed world wide, plus whatever they acquired since.

[HindSight2020]

I see this as, yes an investment to develop (from almost scratch) a new market....Brilliant.

I also see this as contributing to the overall development of any severely underdeveloped region, with all kinds of positive benefits for that country.
It appears so far it is 90% charity at minimum, so far, with the LONG term goal of an ROI.

The humanity aspect is a positive benefit for any recipient country, but what about all of the other people in need in many other countries including North America? Humanity for an organization of that size should be on a global scale and include all countries in need, not just the one that has the second largest population in the world.

As you said, planting a charity seed that is 90% now but will grow into a financial ROI where the charity aspect shall decline to zero.

My point is true humanitarians and philanthropists (corporate or not) never expect a single dime back for their charitable efforts, and most are very humble and chose to remain anonymous without any form of recognition ever.

This is not the case here.

[EyeManDan]

[QUOTE=MikeAurelius;501690]CREATING???

On what planet do you live?

Perhaps you mean 'servicing' a market. The market has been there all the time. They just got there first to grab a goodly chunk of it.

I live on Earth. Their is an existing market in that area. What they are doing is expanding on the market. I am not going to sit here and bash this idea which I think is a good one because its Essilor, or Luxottica, or whoever. I am not a negative person. Take the fact that it is Essilor out of the equation. The people in these areas are going to have a chance for improved lifestyle due to services that they normally don't have any access too. What ever company figures out how to do it will get their investment back by CREATING a new market of people that normally probably would not be in glasses. Chances are they are not servicing existing patients but bringing in new patients by reaching out. Social economics can view this as corporate greed or corporate compassion, either way its a win-win.

IF you think about it if I was to open an optical shop, I would find an area that doesn't have access to one. how is what they are doing different then what we would do if we opened a store.

[idispense]

The humanity aspect is a positive benefit for any recipient country, but what about all of the other people in need in many other countries including North America? Humanity for an organization of that size should be on a global scale and include all countries in need, not just the one that has the second largest population in the world.

As you said, planting a charity seed that is 90% now but will grow into a financial ROI where the charity aspect shall decline to zero.

My point is true humanitarians and philanthropists (corporate or not) never expect a single dime back for their charitable efforts, and most are very humble and chose to remain anonymous without any form of recognition ever.

This is not the case here.

Nor should it be the case. It should be self sustaining on some level. It should also be supervised not just a gift to fall into the hands of corruption, ignorance and uneducated. ROI is not a dirty word.

[lensguy]

The humanity aspect is a positive benefit for any recipient country, but what about all of the other people in need in many other countries including North America? Humanity for an organization of that size should be on a global scale and include all countries in need, not just the one that has the second largest population in the world.

As you said, planting a charity seed that is 90% now but will grow into a financial ROI where the charity aspect shall decline to zero.

My point is true humanitarians and philanthropists (corporate or not) never expect a single dime back for their charitable efforts, and most are very humble and chose to remain anonymous without any form of recognition ever.

This is not the case here.

You can refer to the link I posted, in short, this model does not work in NA mainly because all the "professional" complications and it also drives the price up. Without this, it is quite simple, cheapest source, cheapest materials, cheapest refraction and bingo $4 glasses.

I am sure this is not the only charitable program under the Essilor umbrella?? I really cant be bothered doing the research to defend Essilor, but I am not jumping to conclusions either...........

[Chris Ryser]

I am sure this is not the only charitable program under the Essilor umbrella?? I really cant be bothered doing the research to defend Essilor, but I am not jumping to conclusions either...........

The India Companies Act (2013), also known as the "New Act", was passed by the Indian parliament in August 2013 and has imposed far-reaching changes to the governance of both India-based and foreign companies operating within the country.

The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) section of the New Act came into effect on April 1, 2014, and effectively declared that both domestic and foreign-owned companies must make CSR obligations to help remediate poverty and social problems.

Companies are subject to the CSR requirements if they have, for any financial year, in India:

• A net worth of at least $80 million
• A turnover of at least $160 million or
• Net profits of at least $800,000

Companies that meet these thresholds are required by the law to develop a CSR policy, spend a minimum amount on CSR activities and report on these activities in India.


REQUIRED AMOUNT & ACTIVITIES

A company that meets these thresholds is required to spend no less than two percent (2%) of its average net profit for its preceding three financial years.

Under the India Companies Act, companies are required to develop a CSR strategy and policy, select an implementation mechanism and partner, develop a project plan, and report on these CSR activities.

See all of it: https://csrindia.charity.org/