Starting blocks

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Be clear about the annual financial goals you want to achieve.

In the first of a four-part series looking at the challenges of starting a practice in the Gulf, MED outlines a beginners guide to business planning, licensing and locations.

Entrepreneurship is something they don't teach you in dental school. Yet the majority of dentists will, at some point in their career, branch into private practice. Of those, up to a quarter won't survive the first precarious years of trading, as cashflow problems or poor marketing skills take their toll.

The number of dental clinics springing up across the Gulf is testimony to its fertile business climate. A mix of ingredients including a growing population, an increased focus on health, and the popularity of the Hollywood smile means the time is ripe for dentists considering a new venture.

Making the right decisions from the start can help to minimise obstacles in the future. Here, MED explains how to sidestep the pitfalls and get your teeth into practice.

The best laid plans

Starting a small business in the Gulf can prove challenging. As well as the constantly shifting legislative landscape, fluctuating investment rates can prove fatal.

Even the soundest financial planning can go awry, but a fundamentally solid business plan provides some protection against economic variables.

Due diligence is a must, and the advantage of catalogued local knowledge can't be underestimated.

To gather market intelligence, Dr Linish Sagar, director of Dubai's Noa Dental Clinic suggests prospective practice owners carry out a full feasibility study.

This is not, he underlines, a replacement for a business plan, but can be helpful when pitching for financial backing.

"The study evaluates all of the potential pros and cons of the dentist's business plan, illustrating areas where the plan will work and those areas it won't," he explains.

Points to review include; is there a market for your clinic? What are the risks involved? What skills do you need to run your practice? What resources do you need? What alternatives are there to starting a clinic?

Inevitably, problems will crop up as a result of the study. Dr Maximillian Riewer, proprietor of the Dubai Sky Clinic, insists that any business plan must be flexible enough to accommodate these problems.

"You should be really open-minded. For instance, you want a ready patient base but its worth considering setting up somewhere still under development. In two to three years it will be packed with people. It is always a big advantage if you're the first practitioner in an area."

For those with limited local knowledge, there are many companies based in the region that will take on the job of delivering a feasibility study. In Dubai alone there are around fifty such organisations appearing on the emirate's department of tourism and commercial marketing website.

"Considering the number of clinics currently in the area," Sagar notes, "it is even more imperative these days to analyse the market."

The money mile

The primary point of your business plan is how you plan to finance it. You may plan to fund your clinic yourself, enlist the help of friends or family or apply for a bank loan. Regardless, be clear about your financial targets for the first, fifth and tenth year of practice.

"When you are starting a clinic you should be very focused about the financial goals you want to achieve," says Farrukh Zain, ABN Amro's head of business banking in the UAE. "It is very important for the banks to know that you have considered financial advice when starting your clinic.

"You need to be able to show what you expect your costs to be and the variables that will affect the growth of the business."

With any new business, the biggest costs are start-up expenses. Feasibility studies, licensing fees, business plans and real estate costs will mount up.

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