Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

23Company SpotlightSeptember 5-11, 2011United Kingdom Edition For 3D Imaging, please read on... www.velopex.com Call: 020 8965 2913 Email: enquiries@velopex.com let Velopex Lead You into the Digital Future... Proud of our 50 Years in Quality Imaging, DTo3ds27.04.11rpc D ental Tribune: So, The Dental Directory, 40 years old and busy as ever; tell us more about it. Mike Volk: The Dental Direc- tory is a 40 years old business that is still owned by father and son with no outside sharehold- ers and our focus is entirely on serving our customers. We’ve got to where we are now through holding around £18m worth of stock at any one point, which has virtu- ally eliminated back orders, so we can reinvest in the busi- ness. The reality is that we do a lot of market research, so we know that customers rely upon their dealer having the prod- uct in stock, which is why we carry around £18m of stock at any one time in our automated warehouse. DT: You reinvested £4.5m in the past four years to improve serv- ices; I understand that automat- ed warehouses were one of them, was there anything else? MV: Well, it’s about having enough space to accommodate that £18m worth of stock, but it’s also about making it more efficient. We can process more than 6,000 orders a day without any issue at all. To give you an idea, we’re taking about 2,000 phone calls a day from custom- ers; we then process those or- ders for free overnight delivery by 12:00 the following day. The automated process means, in essence, that the box goes to where the product is stored; this makes it impossible for a picking error to occur, be- cause the box won’t move on if it hasn’t got the right product and quantity in it. This system is also paperless so it is both economic and environmentally friendly. DT: It staggers me that there are more than 26,000 prod- ucts in dentistry, from the big appliances to the gloves; tell me more. MV: We stock about 18 differ- ent composites which have up- wards of 11 different shades, and there are probably about 1,000 different burs and bur siz- es so it’s easy for the number of products to multiply. An inter- esting thing that we also find is that once a dentist has become loyal to a product, they will stay with that product, even if the manufacturers make a new model! DT: So you keep old pieces un- til they discontinue them com- pletely? MV: Yes – and we’ve got loads of those sorts of prod- ucts; we’re buying six units a month of these types of prod- ucts to satisfy just five or six customers. It’s difficult, but it’s all part of the service. DT: So how will The Dental Directory be celebrating the 40 year landmark? MV: What’s interesting is that if we go back 40 years, the chair- man Gordon Mills, who started the business thought that to cel- ebrate 40 years we would run our largest ever promotional campaign – The Value + cam- paign. So, from September on- wards we will be carrying pro- motions on 1000’s of everyday, essential product lines; it will be our biggest ever promotional push and we’re doing it because of these economic times. We’re trying to help our customers; we appreciate that fewer people are going to the dentist and that both private and NHS dentistry are suffering. Also, dentists are facing unprecedented increas- es in regulatory costs, so we thought we’d help our custom- ers and offer them even better value and that’s why we’ve put out these promotional offers. DT: What kinds of lines are you looking at? MV: Oh everything, from an- aesthetics to composites, to rotary hand instruments right across the board; it’s our top moving line. We’re taking be- tween 17 and 30 per cent off our retail prices, depending on the product, so it’s going to be a big push from us to help our cus- tomers in these difficult times. We’re doing special flyers and advertising and our 28-strong sales team will be communicat- ing these prices to our custom- ers. And the interesting thing about our guys, unlike all other dealer reps, is that they don’t get paid commission. There’s no incentive for them to over- sell, they’re purely there to de- tail the products and promo- tions and help our customers in any way that our customers want us to help them. DT: Excellent – so I take it you’re going to Showcase with the different offers? MV: Oh yes, we’ll be there and have our 40 strong team and hospitality tent ready to wel- come all our customers for a free cup of tea or a beer! DT: So how long is the offer running for? MV: The promotions will run until the end of December; however, we’ll refresh them at the end of each month, adding even more products! DT: What about the more phil- anthropic side of the business? I understand that The Dental Di- rectory is very supportive of the profession too? MV: Yes - we support about 13 professional groups in the UK. Examples include the AOG through to DPL through to CODE. We offer their members exclusive promotions, but more importantly we offer a rebate to the managing committee to further the aims and objectives, which are often of a charita- ble nature, of each group. We also support the provision of education using bursaries; an example of one is the bursary we provided for the MSc in Re- storative and Aesthetic dentist- ry delivered by the University of Manchester and Smile-on. In the last three to four years we’ve put back into the profes- sion more than £1m in various ways, including a new Dental Chair in primary dental care at the University of Warwick Med- ical School. We do support the profession; however I’m surprised that a lot of the larger multinational companies, whether they be dealers or manufactures, don’t support the profession more and instead leave it to smaller, family owned businesses. At the end of the day, with- out the profession The Dental Directory would not exist, so we’re happy to give something back. DT Giving something back to the profession Dental Tribune speaks to Mike Volk Sales and Marketing director at The Dental Di- rectory on celebrating the 40-year-old business ‘At the end of the day, without the profession The Dental Directory would not exist, so we’re happy to give something back’ Mike Volk Sales and marketing Director at The Dental Directory