Last year, you have been with the readers of Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa on the history of the company—and it’s a long trip!  W&H is a family-run business and apparently you place great emphasis on people in developing your products. It’s interesting for me that, since last year’s interview, the company has released some new products. Could you tell us about these?

Malata: We are currently focusing on new products in the field of hygiene and sterilization because we experience a strong demand in this application area. One new product in this area is Lara XL. Then, there is another product for maintenance, Assistina One, which is the successor of our Assistina 301. And then there is another product which we are really happy about, the Piezomed module, a piezo-surgery unit which can be combined with the existing Implantmed SI-1023. The advantage of this product is that you don’t have two products at the table. You can attach the piezo-module to the Implantmed SI1023, and you have only one foot control. You have essentially one unit and the possibility of two treatments, implantology with the electric motor and maxillofacial surgery with the Piezomed. And then we are quite happy with and quite proud of ioDent and OsstellConnect.

With OsstellConnect we created a worldwide platform that enables exchange between specialisits about dental solutions. It facilitates networking and collaborating between specialists, the exchange of experience and teaching. I think that this is a very good opportunity for implantologists to get more experience to be able to treat more complicated cases.

Did the COVID pandemic prompt you to develop a sterilisation product which is notably better than others?

Malata: Well, our focus on sterilisation has always been quite high. Our strategy is to develop products which are customer-orientated in different fields, like the Lara XL steriliser. We are very keen on seeing customers’ response when we launch it at exhibitions.

Thallinger: Also customers will see new products for hygiene and sterilisation at the International Dental Show

Malata: COVID made medical professionals more aware of the need for sterilisation, so awareness of needing to have strong performance in a sterilisation unit has grown.

Thallinger: Following the World Health Organization protocols is also important because now, after three years of the pandemic, it’s clear that you have to do something for safe treatment of patients and for the whole practice team.

You have more than 1,300 employees working in different subsidiaries in the world. What is the benefit to clients in having closer access to you geographically?

Malata: Yes, we have 1,300 employees, 18 subsidiaries and four production sites. Being closer to our market enables us to get market feedback from specialists to be able to develop the right products and services and to continuously improve our services and our products.

What is behind your slogan of “People have priority”?

Malata: Our focus is on people. Our primary aim is to develop and produce products which support medical professionals in treating patients. Also people have priority in the development chain. We care for medical professionals. We try to engage with them and develop our products with them. We take their knowledge and their feedback very seriously for the next step in development. By “medical professionals”, I mean dentists, doctors, surgeons, assistants, hygienists, the whole team involved in medical and dental treatment. We also like to have a good relationship with our customers, our business partners and our employees, and all our stakeholders. That’s what we mean by “people have priority”. We strongly believe that together we can achieve our targets more easily than with isolated solutions. That is our philosophy.

Your clients can register the products with the company? How this is important for customers service and what is the benefit?

Thallinger: The easiest way is to register the product via the website. The benefit for the practice, for the dentist or for the hygienist is that we can do predictive maintenance, with our cloud service ioDent, and customers can get the latest information, news about the product and product updates. We can also do software updates not only by service technicians but also via Wi-Fi. And of course, when we have any promotions, registered customers get information in advance. Regarding OsstellConnect, I think that’s important. If customers register their products to get access to the platform, they can really benefit from all the scientific studies and cases. They can use all the data there for a more successful treatments. They can also have everything in their protocol and store it in the cloud.

Another benefit is fast service, because when the customer has already registered on the database, the service technician immediately knows where the customer is located and which products the customer has. If the customer doesn’t know the reference number or manufacturing details, the technician can find that information.

I like your solutions as part of the customer care. Can you tell us more about W&H Built in Solutions?

Malata: We also provide products which can be built-in into dental units, like Piezomed. Into Piezomed, we can integrate a scaler, a piezo-scaler, and an electric motor. So these are solutions which we can provide for dental units. Our solutions can be retrofitted, offering dentists many possibilities.

Can you tell us a little more about your IPC?

Malata: With our IPC - our Individual Prophy Cycle we guide the dentist in providing individual prophylaxis treatment and we provide the right products.

Thallinger: IPC also involves an educational component, because dentists need to consider that not everybody is in the same condition of health and may have health issues. Dentists need to know how to provide professional prophylaxis to patients individually, and IPC guides them on this, helping develop a specific protocol for each patient that considers health issues, age, medical history, sex and so on. IPC guides them from cycle to cycle. We worked out all the protocols step by step with two dentists from Germany and tested these with dental hygienists to get market feedback, such as how they use the protocol and tools and how well IPC works in practice and not in theory.

We all talk about the sustainability as important part of our live. What is your responsibility as growing company?

Malata: Sustainability is important, and for us, it has different aspects. The first aspect are our products. We want to develop products which are repairable, not disposable. We want to have longlasting products. That is sustainability. Sustainability of course also relates to the environment. We want to protect the environment by using technology that harnesses the energy of the sun and earth and to use the least possible energy from fossil fuels. The third aspect is that we also want W&H to endure, to be relevant in the next century and remain a family business. Staying a good family business involves maintaining how we interact together and communicate and supporting each other and working together for a good company, good products, good relationships and a good environment. That is sustainability for W&H.

Is the #dentalsunited decision part of W&H People have Priority?

Malata: #dentalsunited promotes dental professionals working together and reminds us that we like to be together and to have fun. This is an initiative for our customes to get in contact with each other.

Thallinger: It is not product-related. I think that what’s important is that #dentalsunited focuses on having a community of dental professionals who support each other and learn from each other and, of course, enjoy what they do and do it well.