expensive car

Quality at What Cost?

March 10, 2015

To those of you living in states that had the public holiday yesterday, I hope it was a good one. To those who didn’t, your time will come.

The article today covers quality, whether it is cars, clothes, service or dental chairs (note to principals we will cover this shortly.)

I come from a working class family living in the deepest depths of East London (or Essex, delete as applicable.) Money wasn’t free flowing and we were brought up only ever considering the cheapest of everything, something I still can’t help doing today to a certain extent.

My point is, when does buying quality products become an unnecessary expense? Everyone likes nice cars but if their reliability is the same as a cheaper alternative, the fact that an expensive car goes 0-100kph in 3.6 seconds or has 17 different seat positions, it can still only travel at snail’s pace in peak hour traffic. Likewise watches, shoes, designer bottled water; the list goes on.

Which brings me to dental chairs and practices in general. I am not a dentist but have seen the well trodden path of principals equipping their practices with the best that money can buy, chairs being the prime example but I am sure there are other pieces of equipment in surgeries where a cheaper, equally reliable, alternative would have performed in exactly the same manner but just may not have had THAT logo on it.

When considering selling your practice to potential buyers, the price of what you paid for your equipment is nowhere near as important as your financial reports, profit margin and numbers of patients through the door. Personally, I couldn’t tell the difference between a top of the range Italian leather dental chair to one that costs a tenth of the price; I am there for good dentistry and a painless experience.

But what would I know, I was brought up wearing polo shirts sans logo and no name shoes?