By Marge Axelrad
Editorial Director

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla.--Command of information. Continual investment in systems and engineering. A team of experts in sales, service and training support.


To Angel Alvarez, modern distribution in today’s optical market is fusion of all of these.



His company, ABB/Concise, has grown through acquisition, development and merger to become the largest contact lens distributor in the U.S., serving more than 15,000 accounts, representing more than two-thirds of independent eyecare professionals and accounting for some 45 percent of distributor sales of soft lenses.

Angel Alvarez

Staying ahead of the optical industry’s technology curve and employing the strategic science that characterizes the speed and deployment of distributors in other industries outside the realm of eyecare and eyewear, ABB/Concise is a unique resource for its clients and suppliers. The company not only automates efficiencies and order fill rates, but its marketing, sales and training resources enables ECPs to improve contact lens profitability, facilitating online ordering and direct-to-patient delivery that improves their competitiveness and practice operations.

“We are committed to keeping independent ECPs in the game,” said Alvarez, CEO, who founded ABB Optical in 1989. “We have a continuous connection with the universe of independents out there.”

The company started with the acquisition of Co-optics of Pompano Beach. Subsequent acquisitions of RLI/Target, C&E, Contact Optical, Doctors Optical Supply and Wise Optical distributors led up to the merger one year ago with Con-Cise Contact Lens, then the country’s third-largest distributor, which included the San Leandro, Calif. company’s Westlens and Con-Cise East operations. Con-Cise also owned the Primary Eyecare Network (PEN), a buying and practice management group of over 1,000 optometrists in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Hawaii.

Alvarez and Baker, center, with the PEN team. Debbie Oseguera, director of PEN, is at top, center.

PEN’s successful practice education program, anchored by its “Preserving Independent Optometry” theme, will be expanded to other parts of the U.S. starting this year and into next, Alvarez noted. With the steady consolidation of the contact lens industry, ABB/Concise’s position represents streamlined ordering, shipment reconciliation, accounting and record-keeping, pricing parity and lens banks that afford one-stop shopping and other business services from analysis to support and training.

Alvarez said, “Independents perceive that contact lens profitability has declined and, in fact, gross profit margins have eroded. But at the same time, the number of annual purchase transactions per patient have doubled, as the result of disposable lenses and other wearing cycles. Managing transaction costs has become a more significant issue for ECPs, both large and small-sized practices.”


Alvarez pointed out that the least profitable CL transaction ECPs make is to fill an Rx order for two boxes of lenses by calling a supplier. The most profitable transaction is when a patient orders an annual supply over the Internet for shipment to their home or office. “We are the ‘back-room’ operation for ECPs in this regard and we work to show them how they can better compete, build patient loyalty and grow their practice.”

ABB/Concise’s Your Lens program helps practices’ Web sites enhance their image to patients while providing such back up fulfillment service.

The company’s new Coral Springs, HQ, is one of several facilities serving ECPs.

ABB has a field sales force of 50. It publishes a quarterly magazine about contact lens management called Contact Lens Profit Advisor. The ABB/Concise Soft Lens Retail Price Monitor, a proprietary service for accounts, lists average practice prices for popular contact lens brands and compares these to prices charged by leading retailers and Wal-Mart and 1-800 Contacts to help ECPs track trends and benchmark their own.

The company has been reorganizing its warehouses, call centers and marketing/training departments, continually investing in the latest systems and procedures to speed transactions and service capabilities.

Brad Weinbrum	Cindy Pelletier
Diego Cruz	Jeff Rinkus
Lynda Baker	Tim Aiken

“Today, nearly 50 percent of our business is online, meaning b-to-b and some b-to-c, depending on what practices choose to do for their operations and their patients,” Alvarez said.

The ABB/Concise systems generate some 9,000 shipments, on average, per day. The company’s sales exceeded $300 million in 2007 and Alvarez is projecting sales to reach $330 million by the end of this year.

Advice on managing contact lenses via several print vehicles is delivered to ABB/Concise accounts. .

Now comprised of some 520 employees, the ABB/Concise organization is a blend of financial, engineering, logistics and sales and marketing teams. Senior management includes Brad Weinbrum, president; Cindy Pelletier, CFO; Lynda Baker, executive vice president; Tim Aiken, vice president, sales; Jeff Rinkus, vice president, logistics and customer care; Denise Spencer, vice president, human resources and training, and Diego Cruz, vice president, information technology.

“We had a vision of the wholesaler’s role in the optical industry,” Alvarez said. “There have been distributors and buying groups but their core competencies were not in distribution. Our team, over the last decade, has been taking what they’ve learned from a range of arenas to integrate their expertise and apply it to the world of optical.”

Alvarez noted, “We are the solution for independents to compete against mass merchandisers. You can’t bring a knife to a gunfight. We have a $30 million inventory in contact lenses and the capabilities for ECPs to leverage. Wal-Mart understands costs; ECPs need to better understand costs and we are a major assistance to them in this regard.” ■