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A new industry requires a new approach
As the dental profession begins to settle into the new way of the world, all businesses and individuals have had to adapt. For dental laboratories, this has meant reorganising daily processes, streamlining workflows and maximising return on any investments made. The aim of the game is to optimise efficiencies without compromising the quality of products and service provided.
As such, now is the time for innovation and fresh ideas, a chance to reset.

Evaluate your current situation
If you are to successfully navigate the coming weeks and months, it’s important that you understand the position your laboratory is in right now. Reviewing the growth and progress of your laboratory prior to lockdown will be just as crucial as business assessments since re-opening. Think about what worked and didn’t work for you in the last year – is the range of services you offer still relevant? Does your mission statement continue to reflect your offerings? How could you improve your services? Are there opportunities to enhance efficiencies in your laboratory?
As you will likely imagine, there are many different areas of the business to evaluate, so taking a logical approach will be most effective. You could break the assessment down into sections, for example: internal communication, external communication, time management, expenses, processes and equipment. It will also be helpful to involve your team and seek their perspectives, insights and aspirations. They may have different ideas to you, or they might better see where some improvements could be made that you don’t encounter on a daily basis. This also gives everyone an opportunity to contribute, ensuring they continue to feel valued.

Remember to look further afield
Once you have assessed your lab internally, try taking a wider view of the profession to see where your business sits. It’s important to think about how your laboratory compares to others in the market and what changes you may see to the national dental lab landscape in the near future to ensure that you position your business well.
Just as crucial is understanding how you might be able to adapt to the evolving needs of dentists in your area. Could you focus your services to become more specialist and deliver bespoke services? Do you need to broaden your horizons to meet the growing demands of new dentists and their patients?
Similarly, in your experience so far, how have dentists’ confidence levels been affected and do they require anything more than they did before COVID-19? Could new patient/dentist concerns lead to further changes in the way you do things in the lab? How can you provide the reassurance everyone needs? Are new pieces of equipment or protocols needed? Will these become standard across all labs or will they offer a unique selling point for your business? Who can you work with in the industry to get such things in place?
Not all these questions can be answered with complete certainty, but it’s still vital for them to be asked. Only if we prepare for every eventuality can we be ready for whatever the next few months throw at us.

Failing to plan…
Despite the remaining uncertainty across dentistry and indeed, the whole of the UK, it is still important to plan where you can. It’s about doing something and taking a step forward.
For instance, you could map out the next year in terms of your activities, investment areas and training opportunities. It will be subject to change depending on the global situation, but at least this gives you something to start. It will also help you dedicate adequate time to important areas of the business and give you a target to meet that keeps you on track and motivated. Planning ahead like this also means you can better utilise opportunities that come with seasonal or annual events when it comes to marketing or tax management, for example. You will be familiar with the idea that ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’ – making a plan is still your best chance of success.
You could focus on a different area each month, working through tasks like business model planning, equipment reviews, marketing, process audits, team training and website design, to name a few. You may also dedicate some time over the coming months to thank your loyal clients for continuing to support you, or to reach out to neighbouring laboratories to see how you might be able to work together in the future for mutual benefit.
It is just as important to plan some time out. Everyone needs a break and whether you take a holiday elsewhere in the UK, venture abroad or just have a few days on the sofa, it’s crucial to factor in some downtime to recoup and refresh.

Don’t go it alone
With so many changes across the industry in such a short space of time, we have all needed support to get us through. As the dust settles, it remains important to utilise the help and services of other individuals and companies in the sector. Only by working together can we all move forward successfully.
The Straumann Group has taken this to heart and in the past few months created a selection of resources for dental technicians and lab owners to make the most of. In particular, an e-book is available to download (https://www.straumann.com/content/dam/sites/group/gb/website/Labs_Ebook.pdf) with innovative ideas and suggestions to help all labs streamline processes and give their business a boost. The Straumann Group also offers access to an extensive network of professionals, including product experts and training providers. #TogetherStrong
As we take the next tentative steps towards a more stable post-COVID-19 profession, it is crucial that we don’t lose the connections that we made during lockdown. By carefully evaluating your business, planning ahead, utilising available resources and communicating with colleagues from all corners of dentistry, you could come back stronger than ever.

For more information on how the Straumann Group could support your laboratory, please visit www.straumann.com