Farsighted Focus On Innovation

A small-scale brand that started nearly three-decades ago with a mission to provide Sri Lanka with the best eye care products in the country, is a roaring giant in the market today. Janaka Fonseka, Commercial Director of Vision Care, says its focus on using the best technology in the market without compromise and giving a clinical spin to its services rather than just selling off a prescribed product, are keys to its success.

Can you tell us about Vision Care and what sets it apart?

Vision Care, a small-scale operation, was set up by my brother Dasantha Fonseka and his wife, both optometrists, in 1992. What we did was, we changed eye care in the country by using state-of-art technology and equipment not available in Sri Lanka then.

Back then, people were very brand conscious, as they are today, and we grabbed market share by introducing the best in branded technology and a highly skilled staff. Within 30-years, we have become a trusted brand with a workforce of over 550 professionally qualified individuals serving in over 15 SBUs located in Colombo and 55 branches island wide. We have also ventured into Bangladesh.

Our area of specialty would be our staff. In 2008, we started the Vision Care Academy to train staff in-house. Today, the academy is offering a world-class skill in Optometry. We have a highly qualified, well-experienced lecture panel and we also bring in lecturers from leading Universities in Sri Lanka to give the students the most comprehensive education in Optometry.

In addition to this, we continuously renew and upgrade our equipment every two three years. We are operating more as clinics rather than a business that sells eye care products. That is our main focus How important is innovation? Can you give us examples of innovation at work at Vision Care?

We look for innovation at every turn and that has taken us a long way in our journey while working with some of the top brands in the world such as Essilor, the world’s No.1 manufacturer of lenses. One good example is the Mobile Unit which is a state-of-the-art eyecare clinic on wheels. We have fitted a deluxe range of buses with the most innovative, and technologically enhanced facilities that bring solutions to vision-related issues right to the customers’ doorstep.

It has the capacity of serving up to 300 patients per day. Our Director of Academia, Research and Development, Kumari Fonseka has her own team for research and training which helps us maintain a top-notch practice.

What are some of the trends or exciting innovations and technologies shaping the future of eye care?

There are a few innovations. Recently we started sports vision, a cutting-edge technology based on vision therapy that helps to train a person’s brain where the benefits are felt beyond sports performance and impacts the individual’s performance in their day-to-day lives. Another new trend is smart contact lenses.

Global research is ongoing on developing auto-focusing lenses with data storage capabilities and task-specific sensors. When it comes to spectacles, there is something called Augmented Reality (AR) smart glasses. These are wearable computer-capable glasses. These are some of the technologies that will trend in the sector.

What can you tell about the optician sector in Sri Lanka? How do you differentiate the brand in a fairly homogenous market?

This is a growing market in Sri Lanka with different standards of products and services. With the technological and innovative drive at Vision Care we have brought in many high-end brands such as Luxottica which came here about 10-years back. Such brands wouldn’t enter a market without the necessary standards, and we have built that standard in the country.

We have the widest branch network of any eyecare provider in the country which means that customers can easily access our products and services and provide the best care for their eyes through both physical stores and our Online Store shop.visioncare.lk. And secondly, our CSR work.

We strongly believe that our biggest differentiators are the various CSR projects we conduct in the country. One of our significant projects is “Nethralokana Sathkara”. As part of the project, we distributed 25,000 pairs of spectacles free in all corners of the country in 2017 to mark our 25th anniversary celebrations.

The scale of the project was a first-of-its-kind for Sri Lanka, and this meant extended hours and resources, and nearly 500 people played a role in its success.

What are your future plans?

Our focus is to expand our branch network to selected towns and cities while continuing our innovation drive. We will continue to set the benchmark for eye care in Sri Lanka by bringing down the best eye and hearing technology.

And a part of our CSR project, we will continue to provide the necessary eye equipment for people in need across the country and using our Mobile Buses we are determined to create awareness amongst the people of the advantages of eye care. Overall, we will continue to bring in a clinical aspect to our services in every possible way.

We look for innovation at every turn and that has taken us a long way in our journey