Growing an independent veterinary clinic without losing what made it successful

The appointment book is full, the waiting room is busier, and the team is ordering more stock between consults. They’re all good signs for an independent veterinary clinic, but growth can also make the business more complex to run. The challenge is building the capacity to handle more without losing the independence, relationships and way of working that made the practice successful in the first place.

At Cenvet, more than 65 years in veterinary wholesale has given us a close look at how practices evolve.

The challenge is building the capacity to handle more without sacrificing your independence, relationships or way of working. After all, that’s what made you successful in the first place!

It’s usually the ordinary things that are most important. Pet owners choose your practice, and employees stay for a reason. For an independent veterinary practice, that might be the warm welcome at reception, familiar vets and nurses who genuinely care or follow-up calls that make clients feel like more than a number. Internally, it might be direct access to the practice owner, trust in clinical judgement or having a say in operational matters.

Years spent building a strong reputation and connection within your local community is another strength worth holding onto.

The important part is separating those strengths from the way things have always been done. Your client relationships, clinical independence and local reputation may be worth protecting at all costs. The spreadsheet used for ordering stock probably isn’t.

Smaller practices can cope with most operational knowledge, like which products are used most often and what needs ordering each week, resting with one or two people. As the practice gets busier and more people become involved in purchasing, that informal system gets a bit harder to rely on. And what happens when that one person (or two) is away, overloaded or leaves?

The answer isn’t to add more administration. It’s to make the information easier to access and routine jobs easier to complete.

For purchasing and inventory, this can include:

• Seeing stock availability, previous orders, backorders, invoices and delivery status in one place.
• Using saved order templates and barcode scanning to make regular ordering quicker.
• Integrating purchasing with your practice management software to reduce manual work around pricing, invoicing and stock reconciliation.
• Using purchasing data to better understand what you’re buying and make informed stock decisions.

Cenvet Pulse and Purchase Assist are two of the services our clients enjoy as part of their relationship with Cenvet, giving practices better visibility and control. The less time your team spends chasing information or repeating routine tasks, the more capacity they have elsewhere.

A higher appointment volume with higher revenue looks good. But numbers are only part of the story. Taking on more patients increases costs like staffing, equipment and stock holdings. If those costs rise as quickly as or faster than revenue, that extra busyness isn’t going to be profitable.

And then there’s cash flow. More stock sitting on shelves means more money tied up in inventory. Buying too little can cause supply problems, while buying more than you actually need also comes at a cost. Having the right amount of stock available for your actual needs becomes increasingly important.

Higher purchasing volumes make the commercial details more significant. Price matters, but so do rebates, freight, payment terms and buying power. The arrangements that suited your practice at a smaller scale may no longer give you the best value.

Don’t overlook the bargaining position that comes with a larger purchasing spend. Better terms, competitive pricing or consolidating suppliers can help you get greater value from money the practice is already spending.

You can’t do everything internally as a larger veterinary operation. You depend on wholesalers, software providers, laboratories, equipment suppliers and a variety of other businesses to keep things running. When they’re reliable and responsive, you probably don’t think too much about them. When they’re not, your team will certainly notice!

It’s really more than a case of choosing well. External partners form part of your operations. Their reliability and responsiveness can either make life easier… or create more work.

And for an independent practice, there’s one more thing to consider: does the relationship still leave you in control? A partner can provide scale, technology, commercial benefits and support without deciding which products you should use or forcing the practice into a particular way of operating.

You should still be able to choose the products and brands that suit your practice, ask for flexibility when you need it and speak to someone who knows your business when there’s a problem. Support should make running your practice easier, without taking decisions out of your hands.

As an Australian-owned national veterinary wholesaler, Cenvet has spent 65 years supporting clinics and seeing how practices evolve, so we understand why control matters. Our role is to streamline supply, resources and support you need to grow, while protecting the independence and relationships you’ve worked hard to build.

The good news is growth doesn’t have to change the character of your practice. You can make room for more patients, more people and more opportunity without losing the things you’d never want to grow out of.

Cenvet is your veterinary wholesale partner, with more than 65 years supporting independent clinics across Australia. Clients can access a suite of services, including CenVet Pulse, Purchase Assist, CenSational Plus and Obay.

Contact us today and discover how Cenvet can benefit your clinic.