The Associated Press called me for an interview a couple of weeks ago. Allegiance, who powers our customer feedback system, referred them to me for a story about how companies use technology to save money during the downturned economy.  I was expecting a few questions about how we use Allegiance, but the reporter was really interested in EVERYTHING Ultradent is doing to save money this year.

I must admit, I wasn't prepared for the type of questions the reporter fired off; I was not exactly the right person to interview for this story.  I thought it would be a great opportunity to brag about our great company, though, so I told her I'd go on a fact finding mission.  I met with Dirk Jeffs, Kris Beynon, Mark Brinkerhoff, and even briefly with Dr. Fischer.  What I learned was enough to make anyone proud to work here.

First of all, it's probably important to define the impact this economy is having on us -- we're certainly better off than many companies in the country or even in our industry.  Dirk Jeffs told me that the overall dental consumables market is down by 5-7% due to the economy, but Ultradent’s domestic sales are relatively flat.  He said the biggest drag on our top line has been the increased strength of the U.S. dollar this year compared to last year. The currency exchange has impacted our international sales to some degree.

Since we're so fortunate, we haven't had to take drastic measures like large-scale layoffs.  Any company would be irresponsible not to consider the current economy, though, so it was nice to hear our leaders talk about internal mentality shifts. The general consensus was that we now think of costs in terms of people when weighing decisions, e.g. “This expense would pay the salaries of three people.”

Our 30-year-old company has had the advantage of being a privately held company with a visionary leader, so our priorities have always leaned toward progression and improving oral health care globally. Not being beholden to stockholders, there have been times we have considered 5-10 years an acceptable length of time to recoup our investments. Now we are looking at things in terms of “needs” instead of “wants.”  We continue to invest in strategic projects, though the payoff time line is more closely considered now and we tend to focus on investments that have a quicker or more dramatic impact on revenue.

We have also reconsidered our shipping options. In the past, we have paid our shipping company for delivery within a 3-5 day window. We now save half of our shipping costs by paying for ground shipments instead of air shipments; our shipments are guaranteed to be delivered in five days. Of course, if a customer wants an order more quickly, they can pay for expedited shipping, but we have chosen to eliminate expensive shipping where less expensive shipping will suffice. There is no reason for us to pay double the freight charges for orders unless our customers need the materials immediately.

We've started using cost-saving technology, as previously mentioned with Allegiance. This customer feedback system helps us collect, respond to, and track customer feedback efficiently and without paper.

Another cost-saving technology, Webex, is an online conferencing tool we now use to save expenses for training our outside sales staff.  Dr. Fischer said the technology helps us to be better stewards of our capital by meeting online instead of flying all reps to corporate headquarters multiple times per year. Between online meetings and smarter staffing of trade shows, we have been able to reduce corporate travel by 25%.

We also use Webex to help our customers save money.  So far, we have hosted two continuing education Webinars, for which the dental staff members were able to earn three CE credits each. We pay a nominal monthly fee to use the system, plus a per minute charge for each conference attendee who dials into the toll free Webex line. Most conference attendees have opted to listen to the audio over their computer speakers or headphones instead of dialing in, however, so our cost is minimal and the benefit to the attendees (our customers) is great. We always schedule the Webinars on Fridays when most dental offices are closed, so they don’t have to rearrange patient schedules. The attendees are able to earn continuing education credits for their state license renewal from their own home or office instead of incurring costs of travel, days out of office, etc. Also, we usually charge around $395 per dentist to attend a live continuing education event, but the Webinars have been free to this point.

Within the company, we have formed two committees:

$1 Million Club
Has a goal to save $1 million this year through initiatives that present a low impact on employees. Examples: 

• Negotiating lower fees with the vendors who take care of the plants inside our building - Adjustment of travel policy, which still fits within IRS and DOL guidelines but reduces overtime, etc.
• Leveraging technology we already own that hasn’t been fully taken advantage of (e.g. Setting up an automated, direct connection between our bank and the Oracle system we use for operations has saved ½ person’s time. We always had this capability, but never made the time to configure it.)
• Coordinated purchasing effort – After investigation, we found that having multiple administrative assistants throughout the company order their own supplies has contributed to over-purchasing and varying price models for the same types of items. Coordinating these efforts more tightly is saving us over $200,000 per year in office and event supplies.

Operations Excellence
All employees from the Operations team are working together to make our systems more efficient and save money. The internal philosophy is to work smarter and encourage an atmosphere of change. Employees receive bonuses when they come up with true cost saving ideas. We are trying to encourage the area/department experts to think about cost savings in their own areas and then share a piece of the corporate savings as a reward. Employees have come up with ideas big and small that they have to map out and justify. This has saved us in labor and system costs, with employees contributing valid, implementable savings ideas of up to $60,000 per year.

So, after all this fact finding, a tiny blip about our company was mentioned in a few publications (and I was unfortunately misquoted about the extent of our layoffs), but I think they did their best to convey our message. You can read this story in a lot of regional papers across the country or on Yahoo.com. 

I'd like to applaud everyone at Ultradent who is working so hard to be financially responsible in this time of economic difficulty.  I'm always grateful to work here and this year, that point seems especially poignant.

Email is one of those indispensable tools that many of us both love and hate.  Over the last thirty years, we’ve moved from an environment where email didn’t exist, to a place where it has easily overtaken all other types of communication, in quantity at least – though definitely not in quality. Are you in control of your email, or is a monster that runs your life?

I am lucky to work with amazing, quality and caring people around the globe.
Chantell in South Africa is one of them.
I like to call her Maya the bee - humble, low profile and ever so dedicated and hard working when it comes time to roll up the sleeves.

I recently received this message from Chantell and I want to share with you (with her permission).

“Hi Nicolas,
I am so excited, I just had to share this with you now.
We have a University in the Limpopo province, where we have been very involved. Last year I did a lecture there for 5th year students, and we went back in May (this year) for another lecture on tooth whitening but we decided to do it in a different way. They have a large amount of fluorosis patients in the area. We asked for 2 patients as volunteers. They came in on a specific day and we started off by taking impressions of the patients. Then, we did a demo on the UltraVac Vacuum Former - the casting, blocking out, making bleaching trays. We made bleaching trays for our volunteers. Then we went and gave the lecture on the different options of whitening, including Opalustre. We told the students that it will take some time to see results, fluorosis & tetracycline are more difficult to treat. Then we took the patients to the dental clinic, where we started our procedure.

We used a Rubber Dam & Opalustre procedure, followed by Opalescence Boost. We established that there was no sensitivity at this point.  Then, we used Opalescence Quick 45%, placed it in the trays for the patients and they waited for 2 hours. In the meantime, we answered questions.  I must admit, some of the students were very skeptical because they could not see a big difference after the Boost. We gave the volunteer patients Opalescence 20% and UltraEz, explained exactly how to use it and they left.

Today, we returned to follow-up on the patients and WOW - see for yourself. I have photo’s here of one patient. This is after using 4 syringes of 20% at home. They are going to continue for another 2 weeks, and we will see them again. I will send more photos when we have the end results.

The patients are so happy, this lady in the pictures is 20 years old, she said it has "changed her life”.

Thank you Chantell.
And thank you to all our gorgeous distributors around the world who are sharing and spreading our values.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty * Winston Churchill

Hopefully in the last week, you’ve tried some of the tips from my last post, and spent more face-to-face time talking with people, instead of defaulting to email. This round, I wanted to address more ways to shrink the Email Monster – one of which might even help your personal relationships.

Another problem we often see is the lengthy CC list.  It’s too easy to burn hours of someone else’s week up by carbon copying them on every topic you think they might be remotely interested in. This is very frustrating for the recipient spending time every day receiving a lot of messages that they don’t really want.

Sometimes, this is done as a type of indirect coercion or name-dropping.  (“If your boss sees this too, you’ll know I’m serious about it). There are more honest, direct ways to communicate.

If the reason for copying is positive – to really assist a group of people in collaboration, staying in touch with critical info they really need to know, then great! Just reevaluate your reasons and make sure the list is no longer than it NEEDS to be. Alternatively, you can use a different tool - something that’s really designed for group posting – Yammer or a SharePoint Project Portal, for instance. These really excel at rapid, efficient group communication and easy, fast reading. Email is lousy at this – slow for the senders and the recipients alike.

Nope – I’m not swearing. I’m referring to the audible or visual indicators many people use for incoming messages - a desktop popup window, beep, Blackberry tone or vibration, etc.

We actually have a company policy requiring that these indicators be turned off. If your laptop, desktop, Blackberry, iPhone, or whatever is taking your attention away from a conversation, meeting, or project when SOMEONE ELSE sends you a message, you’re killing your productivity and that of others.

Time management experts recommend you set aside two times during the day to check and reply to emails; mid-morning and mid-afternoon, for example. By doing this, you are controlling your own time and mental focus – not the several thousand other people around you who happened to hit “send” at any given moment of the day.

There are exceptions – some roles that mandate monitoring email constantly. If this is the case for you (Sales, Service Desk , Maintenance, etc.), then it’s fine. For you, email is a tool that’s time-sensitive, and you have to pay attention. HOWEVER, know when to turn it off! I’ve heard from a few people of Blackberries thrown out of the dining room during dinner, or the bedroom at night.