Dentsply Sirona CEO Donald M. Casey Jr. is excited about continuing to change the company's culture to focus on the needs of dental practices.
"We are building innovation and focusing on the customer," Casey told DrBicuspid.com at the Chicago Dental Society 2019 Midwinter Meeting.
Casey was named CEO only weeks before the 2018 Midwinter Meeting. He sat down to review his first year as CEO and to look forward to where one of the biggest companies in dentistry is going.
"When we talked a year ago, I asked the question of how do we put the customer more at the center of what we are doing," Casey said. "The fact that we are here talking today and seeing three awards from customers is a tribute to the best employee base in the business."
Casey was referring to the three Dental Excellence Awards his company recently won:
- Best New CAD/CAM product for the Dentsply Sirona Hub data storage unit
- Best New Dental Equipment Product for the company's SiroLaser Advance Plus diode laser
- Best New Endodontic Product for its Dentsply Sirona Endodontics' GuttaCore obturators
The company faced some "bumps in the road on the business side" that it is addressing, he noted. He is referring to an August 2018 announcement of new leadership and company restructure. The changes were announced after the company reported a net loss of more than $1 billion in the fiscal second quarter.
Dentsply Sirona CEO Donald M. Casey Jr. accepts a Dental Excellence Award from DrBicuspid.com CEO Craig Overpeck at the recent Chicago Dental Society 2019 Midwinter Meeting.Casey mentioned he has spent the past year also leading big changes among the company's sales forces.
"We have done a major overhaul of our sales force, including adding [sales] reps," he said. "We've also set up a CAD/CAM sales force to support our distribution partners."
In addition, Dentsply Sirona has completed a survey of about 1,500 dentists to learn more about how dentists use products and their communication patterns, according to Casey.
A key point to emerge from the survey is that the company has to understand the differences in communicating with younger dentists compared with more established practitioners.
"Dentists who are younger than 35 are very different from older dentists, no matter if they are practicing at a dental service organization or in private practice," he explained. "How these practitioners want information delivered is very different from anyone else."
Dentsply Sirona spent considerable time over the last year focusing on understanding the different segments in the dental market, such as age of practitioner, specialty, and comfort with technology, Casey said.
"We've come to understand that dentists are motivated by innovation," he concluded. "They want to be the best clinicians possible."
