An Interview with DenMat Holdings, LLC
Todd Tiberi, JD
Chief Administrative Officer, DenMat Holdings, LLC
Inside Dentistry (ID): What are your company’s main advantages? How is it unique?
Todd Tiberi (TT): There are lots of companies in dentistry that offer great products and services, but DenMat is unique in that it is the only company involved in the manufacturing and distribution of general and esthetic dental products that markets directly to consumers to generate demand for dental procedures. We spend millions of dollars each year to market systems like LUMINEERS® and Snap-On Smile®, generating hundreds of thousands of patient leads per year. We deliver those patients to participating dentists who can then provide not only our product but also a full range of dental care. This has achieved an invaluable relationship between DenMat and its dental customers.
ID: If you had to rank the most important elements of your success, what would be your top three?
TT: There’s no question that we measure our success through the success of our customers—dental professionals. In the words of Vidal Sassoon, “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good.” We truly believe this. In fact, it is the foundation of our corporate mission to make our customers more successful in the eyes of their customers—the patients who entrust them with their oral health. We know that if we can help dental practices achieve this, it will solidify a lifelong bond between DenMat and our customers.
Of course, there are other keys to our success, such as 3 decades of clinical success of our laboratory services and an expansion of high-quality, great-value product lines that we make available to dental practices. DenMat’s expanding product offering now includes soft tissue lasers, restorative materials, impression materials, curing lights, adjunctive oral abnormality screening, magnification loupes, and, of course, a full-service dental laboratory featuring LUMINEERS, Snap-On Smile, crowns, and bridges. One of our measures of success is the number of dental practices that order several different product lines from us on a regular basis.
ID: What most defines your approach to business?
TT: The customer comes first. Period. DenMat has evolved over the past 35 years. Since our acquisition of the company in 2011, we have redefined the company’s philosophy. Without doubt, the most important aspect of our approach is our steadfast commitment to enhancing the customer experience. Customer “service” is not enough—we need to enhance the entire experience of being a DenMat customer.
To this end, we have begun upgrading everything, including our customer communications, quality control processes, accounting logistics, human resources, and more. Our paramount goal is to ensure that doing business with DenMat is not only easy, but a pleasure. We want customers to not just buy great products from DenMat—we want our customers to be raving fans of DenMat. We often say we are building a great dental company one happy dental professional at a time.
ID: What inspires the forward motion of DenMat in today’s marketplace?
TT: We are truly inspired by our customers and what they do for patients. When a person’s life is transformed because the dental team provided a new LUMINEERS smile or transformed an edentulous patient with a new Snap-On Smile, it reinforces the notion that what we are doing is good for the profession and good for patients. I can’t tell you how many letters we receive on a regular basis from dental offices and patients testifying to the power of a new smile.
ID: What are your top initiatives for 2013 and 2014?
TT: We recently launched our Thinnovation™ education program to support the newest generation of LUMINEERS. Today, LUMINEERS is a platform based on minimally invasive esthetic dental concepts (rather than the prior no-prep philosophy). Smile design is fundamental to the new LUMINEERS but so is the need to preserve tooth structure.
Thinnovation teaches superior esthetic results with proper function and long-term stability, while maintaining as much original tooth structure as possible. It’s no longer a “no prep” system. Instead, LUMINEERS can be used for a spectrum of preparation approaches and materials to deliver the best results possible. Watch for the nationwide network of Thinnovators! On the operational side, we are also moving into a new, state-of-the-art 90,000 square foot global headquarters in central California.
ID: How is the global economy impacting your operations?
TT: We believe that dentistry is somewhat recession resistant. Though the entire industry has seen some ups and downs since 2007, we are now starting to see a comeback in almost every part of our business. And DenMat’s products and services are now in greater demand internationally than ever before.
In response, we’ve developed global logistics and manufacturing operations to ensure, for example, that a doctor in Russia who wants LUMINEERS will receive them on time, every time. Most recently, we have established DenMat laboratory services in Italy, Brazil, and Lebanon to satisfy global demand. These centers will serve as models for the increasing DenMat globalization.
ID: Can you share anything that you have in the pipeline right now?
TT: In the past year, DenMat has expanded its product offering by making several key product acquisitions. First, it acquired the restoratives and impressions lines that were formerly manufactured and sold by Discus Dental (Splash!®, Precision®, FLASHlite®, PERFECTemp®, and more). Then we acquired the global distribution rights to the VELscope Vx for oral abnormality screening. And most recently we acquired PeriOptix™, which manufactures a line of premium magnification loupes and lights.
We intend to continue to add high-quality product lines to our portfolio—all for the purpose of continuing to provide our customers great products for great value. We’re also engaged in exciting R&D projects at home in California. Stay tuned—the new DenMat is just getting started. We are confident when we say that there’s never been a better time to try DenMat!
