Jerome Lapaire Archives | The East African Business Times

If Jerome Lapaire were to have a sit-down with most people almost five years ago to share his vision for Africa’s eyecare industry, many would have shrugged him off.

Few would have believed that a young man with very little optical health background would manage to literally shake an industry that was already dominated by big, well-resourced international and regional companies.

His vision was bold, ambitious but strategic- ‘to focus on reaching out to the local communities, the mass market that does not benefit from any health insurance.’

This population generally lacks awareness about eye problems and affordable eye care solutions. Therefore, Lapaire Group has had to do a lot of awareness campaigns to spread the word and partner with organizations able to support awareness creation.

Jerome Lapaire, Founder and CEO of Lapaire Group

Also, to adequately serve this mass market, the company has had to harmonize its rates for eyecare services to very affordable margins. It provides free vision tests with professional optometrists and affordable glasses at Ksh3400 (USD30), which includes frame and single-vision client lenses.

“At Lapaire, we focus on accessibility and customer care. Our offer is very simple and our prices are totally transparent. Our vision test is completely free. Our eyeglasses start from USD 30, frame and lenses included, and we provide payment and installment and free delivery within Nairobi,” said Jerome Lapaire, the company’s CEO.

“If you want a certain frame, you won’t have to pay more. The price remains the same. Only the type of lenses adapted to your correction need or treatment/coating will impact the cost. You will never pay more than Ksh10,000 (USD100) with Lapaire if you tick all the options,” He added

Focus on Universal Eye Health Coverage

In its drive to include more people in its healthcare package, Lapaire Glasses has maintained its position among first optical firms in the region to get rid of all entry barriers- that is, consultation fees, vision tests costs and exorbitant cost of spectacles.

From having 10 frames at inception to having more than 100 frames at the moment, it has increased its variety of offers. Turnaround time has also been cut off from four weeks to 48 hours.

To date, Lapaire has tested the eyes of more than 150,000 people and improved the lives of over 90,000 people.

Lapaire’s life-changing strides in Africa’s eyecare industry

“We have been working tirelessly with passion to make everyone-young and old- aware of sight problems and support those in need of glasses. Corrected eyeglasses are too expensive today and remain inaccessible to people who do not have optical health insurance. That’s why Lapaire’s primary mission is to make eyeglasses accessible to all those who look for quality and affordability,” says Oliver Mwanko Wambile, the company’s Public Relations and Communications Officer in East Africa.

Expansion Strategy

Lapaire’s life changing strides in Africa’s eyecare industry

Over the past four years, Lapaire Group has focused on expanding its coverage from East to West Africa. The company currently operates over 40 optical shops across Africa, where its professional teams offer free vision tests with qualified eye specialists and a wide array of frames and lenses.

In 2021, in East Africa alone, the company opened about three optical branches and has further opened 8 optical shops throughout this year (2021). “We are planning to open an additional 10 branches across our 7 geographies this year. By 2023, we shall expand to new countries in Africa,” Lapaire’s Expansion Manager East Africa & English-speaking countries, Roseline Kilonzo says.

“Regarding our portfolio, we have also been growing our selection of frames since the beginning of the year, adding more materials, shapes and colors for men, women and kids. We shall be adding new products and services in the coming year as we identify new needs when analyzing our customers,” adds Kilonzo.

Impact on youth and job creation

Lapaire’s life changing strides in Africa’s eyecare industry

Since its inception in 2018, Lapaire has shown its passion in working and collaborating with the youth. The majority of the company staff across the continent, the PR and Communications Officer says, is between 20 and 35 years old, with 53 percent being female and 47 percent male.

The company now employs over 280 individuals throughout seven African nations. “As we continue to expand, it is reasonable to assume that number will maintain over time, as we now cooperate with numerous universities and schools to assist us in scouting the greatest talents in various fields such as optometry, sales and marketing, among others.”

Lapaire’s Inroads in Uganda

Lapaire-Glasses

Lapaire Group’s strategy of universal inclusion in eye healthcare has also been felt in countries such as Uganda, where figures show that over 2,5 million individuals have eye impairments, and over 250,000 people are blind in both eyes.

According to Oliver Mwanko, these scary numbers stem from lack of public awareness and insufficient number of experts in the sector, notable that the first set of locally trained ophthalmologists graduated in Makerere University in 2019, leaving Uganda with only 40 ophthalmologists currently operating in a country of over 40 million people.

To help manage this crisis, Lapaiare has been adding new branches in Uganda almost every month. It first opened its first branch in the country in 2020. Today, it has 10 locations across the country; Seven of which have opened this year.

The company continues to reach its mass market through communications and partnerships. It has launched various marketing campaigns across different cities and also uses social platforms to grow its brand. Additionally, the company uses traditional marketing channels and also develops innovative ways of communicating with the general public.

“In Kampala city, we have launched our very own set of billboards and in Mbarara, we have partnered with boda boda operators by providing them with safe reflector jackets to sensitize the community on the free vision tests offered by Lapaire,” Oliver explains.

As the world celebrated the ‘World Sight Day’, under the theme “LOVE YOUR EYES”, Lapaire could not help but reckon the kind of impact it has created in the region and the mission it sets its eyes on in Africa.

During the week, the company emphasized the importance of regular eye exams across the region by assisting those who needed eyeglasses but couldn’t afford them. In Uganda, the company’s employees held a press conference in collaboration with the local and national press to highlight the importance of maintaining good eye health and encouraged everyone to visit Lapaire branches across the region to have their eyes tested for free.

Jerome Lapaire exemplifies Harriet Tubman’s famous phrase, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer” Lapaire, the founder and CEO of Lapaire Group, understood the anguish millions of individuals in Africa had as a result of eye care issues.

He chose to forego a life-changing job path in order to dive into the murky waters of entrepreneurship in the hopes of putting smiles on the faces of individuals who could not afford proper eye care services.

Jerome Lapaire Chief Executive Officer Lapaire Glasses East Africa

After successfully graduating in Law from the University of Geneva, Lapaire switched and started working on a few entrepreneurial projects in Hong Kong and London. He would in March 2015 move to Nairobi, Kenya, where he joined an impact investment fund and worked in a Pan-African market research agency to better understand the local market.

In 2017, while working in Nairobi, he noticed that several of his colleagues couldn’t see well from far. They had uncorrected refractive errors and accessibility to eye care services was the main reason.

“Indeed, taking a consultation with an eye specialist and buying eyeglasses in Kenya requires a lot of time and money, which most people cannot afford. So, I decided to read about this topic and learnt a lot about it,” he says.

Mr. Lapaire had numerous reasons to be concerned. The number of persons suffering from vision difficulties was quite high! To make matters worse, they were becoming worse by the day. According to a 2019 World Health Organization (WHO) estimate, At least 2.2 billion people worldwide suffer from vision impairment or blindness, with over 1 billion cases possibly preventable or neglected.

The first World report on Vision, issued by WHO ahead of the World Sight Day on 10 October 2019, revealed that more than 1 billion people worldwide are living with vision impairment because they do not get the care they need for conditions like short and far sightedness, glaucoma and cataract.

Further, estimates from the world health body reveals that 550 million people need glasses in Africa. Unfortunately, only about 1 percent own a pair. In Kenya alone, more than 7.5 million people are in need of interventions to prevent loss of vision, restore vision or need rehabilitation to improve performance.

With this background knowledge, Lapaire was not going to sit back and watch the local

community suffer.

Founding Lapaire Group

Lapaire glasses

In February 2018, he assembled a very small team with two interns (one of them Roseline Kilonzo, who is the Company’s East Africa Regional Manager today), gathered personal funds

and launched Lapaire Glasses in Nairobi.

“We started small, by partnering with medium-sized businesses to conduct vision tests at the workplace and propose affordable but quality eyeglasses to the employees. Shortly after, we caught the eye of a venture capital fund- Saviu Ventures, that decided to support our expansion across Africa,” the CEO says.

Just as the company was growing its tentacles across the region, a pandemic hit in 2019. The first wave of Covid boxed the company. Most countries imposed lockdowns and customers could not travel to do the vision tests at Lapaire shops.

They were obliged to reschedule clients appointments multiple times, leaving consumers without a backup alternative for a considerable time. Despite the difficulties, the firm persevered, engaging with clients even while the branches were closed.

“We quickly put in place all of the essential safeguards to prevent anyone from becoming infected in our optical stores and to reassure our consumers that they are in a safe location”

We operated with a smaller staff for a while, and since then, our workers wear face masks, and customers must clean their hands with sanitizer before entering our stores. “Eyeglasses and optical equipment are cleaned after each customer uses them.”

Lapaire services and strategy

The firm offers free vision tests with certified optometrists as well as low-cost glasses starting at Ksh3400 (which includes frame and single vision client lenses). The huge range of frames comes in a variety of forms and colors.

“Depending on your corrective needs, our optometrists can recommend single vision, bifocal, or progressive lenses.” We also recommend different coatings and treatments for your lenses based on your lifestyle and needs,” adds the CEO, adding that anti-scratch hard coating and anti-glare coating are standard on all lenses. Photochromic lenses to guard against UV light, a popular alternative because of their capacity to tint in the sun and provide additional protection on the outside, are also available, among other unique services.

It’s also worth noting that all of Lapaire’s glasses and sunglasses are named after Africa cities and islands.

Lapaire Group has recorded major breakthroughs overtime, especially on its production levels and delivery time. It has increased the number of frames from 10 at the beginning to over 100 frames currently. Delivery time of products to clients has also reduced from the initial four weeks to 48 hours.

The company’s business strategy is lean, with a great focus on accessibility and customer care.

The offers are simple, and prices totally transparent.

“Our vision test is completely free. Our eyeglasses start from KES3,400, frame and lenses included, and we provide payment by installments as well, popularly known as lipa mdogo mdogo,” says Oliver Mwanko Wambile, Lapaire Group’s Public Relations & Communications Officer in East Africa.

Building trust and confidence

Oliver Wambile, Head of public Relations, Lapaire Glasses East Africa

Lapaire has continued to place a strong emphasis on quality and openness in order to be competitive in a very cutthroat sector. In an effort to prevent fakes, the firm purchases all of its goods directly from the manufacturer and only sells Lapaire-branded frames.

Technology and innovation continue to be a key pillar driving the business’ expansion. Given that the business is pan-African, it employs digital technologies internally to facilitate communication and productivity.

“Our optical shops are all connected to a centralized system and linked to optical labs to process the orders in the shortest time possible. Externally, we communicate frequently through our social media and propose online bookings and orders to our customers through our website,” Jerome says.

We also provide a cutting-edge service, with ambitions to expand it further, that includes free vision exams, reasonably priced glasses, and an installment payment plan.

Crossing borders

Louis Gascoin Chief Operations Officer

Following its successful introduction in Kenya, Lapaire Group has now expanded its coverage from East Africa to West Africa, with over 35 optical branches in operation across Africa. The firm serves patients in Kenya, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, and Togo.

“By the end of 2022, we intend to reach 50 branches throughout our seven regions, which means we’ll focus on new communities and cities. We plan to grow even more in 2023 and probably open new countries in sub saharan africa,” said Louis Gascoin Lapaire’s Chief Operations Officer.

“Regarding our portfolio, we have also been growing our selection of frames since the beginning of the year, adding more materials, shapes and colors for men and women, but also kids.”

Closing the eye care gaps in Africa

Over the next few months, the company’s top priority will be to expand, with plans to open more locations around the region in order to “make everyone – young and old – aware of sight difficulties and help those in need of glasses.”

Corrected eyeglasses, according to Mr. Lapaire, are too expensive today and remain out of reach for those without optical health insurance. That is why, as per Lapaire, their major objective is to make eyeglasses available to anyone who seeks quality and is cost conscious.

The door to potential remains open for the forward-thinking firm, which aspires to “be the

pan-African leader in the optical market and reach more than 7 nations over the next five

years.”