Industry Focus

CUSTOMER CONVERSATION Chat with Exact Radiology Clinics' Dr Peter Dunn As managing partner and co-owner of a thriving radiology business, Dr Peter Dunn doesn't have time to deal with a bank that doesn't have the business's best interests at heart WORDS: AMAL AWAD While Westpac is a fairly new participant in the healthcare sector, Justin Dickinson, Senior Relationship Manager for Westpac Healthcare in Brisbane, says the bank is proving its value proposition. "The key elements of that have been understanding the nuances of not just the entire sector, but the individual modalities," says Dickinson. One of these clients is Exact Radiology Clinics, which was established five years ago and has since grown to nine clinics throughout Brisbane and Ipswich. Peter, tell us about your business. The business is a full diagnostic radiology business. We deal with diagnostic medical imaging and general practice imageguided intervention procedures. We do all the medical imaging when your GP or specialist refers you. That can be women's imaging, A-B scans, biopsies, CAT scans, ultrasounds, MRI or nuclear medicine. How large is your business? We employ about 120 staff. We're a medium-size business and we now have nine clinics in West Brisbane, extending out to Ipswich and Gatton, west of Brisbane. We also manage the Ipswich Hospital medical imaging department. Did you start your business with Westpac? We didn't, but our first large practice was next door to the Westpac branch at Riverlink Shopping Centre in Ipswich. We established a relationship with the branch manager, who was extremely helpful to us at that time. He put us on to business banking and we established a business banking relationship with a couple of preliminary, fairly low-key loans to start up our business. How did the relationship progress? Westpac became more of a lender to us once we started to establish that rapport with the business banking team. We moved from the local business banking manager, 12 Industry Focus LEFT: Dr Peter Dunn (left) with Justin Dickinson. who went on a sabbatical, up to Westpac Healthcare. Through that, we met Justin Dickinson about two years ago. How does Justin assist you and what's the point of difference in the service? I think the point of difference in any business banking manager is their availability, their accessibility and their willingness to meet with us on our terms … and then facilitate what we need. We are extremely time poor and Justin's willingness to meet us at our business has made a huge difference to us. How has the bank's knowledge of your sector been helpful? I think that's one of the reasons why we changed banks. We just felt Westpac were more focused on health. They understood our industry, they understood radiology. In trying to talk concerns of general day-to-day banking, the loans, the structure of those loans, you obviously need people like Justin who have a very good insight into the business and the foresight to say [what we need], and tailor our loans to those needs so that we can establish a business. What are your business goals and how are you working with Westpac to achieve them? In the last two years we've had exponential growth in the western suburbs and south-west of Brisbane and Justin's always been available to assist us with that. Westpac has fundamental advice on how to manage growth in terms of our banking needs. They've also been dealing with us on day-to-day banking as well. They're not trying to offer us a loan and walk away. They're interested in the entire growth of our business. It sounds like you have a healthy relationship and you're poised for more growth. You're in the right place. Absolutely. I think the most important thing about dealing with Westpac is that they respond to our needs and don't try to sell us products we don't need. They really tailor what we need. The last thing we need is people trying to sell us things or push us in a direction we clearly don't want to go. That's why we're very happy with them.

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