Should we get started? Yeah. Okay, perfect. Hi, everybody. I'm Elizabeth Anderson. I'm the healthcare technology and distribution analyst here at Evercore. I'm delighted to be joined by Glenn Coleman, who I'm sure many of you know, CFO of Dentsply Sirona, and Andrea Daley, who does IR. So thanks, guys, for coming down to Miami.
Thank you for having us.
It's nice to see you. So, you know, on the back of your recent Investor Day, I wanted to dig a little deeper into some of the subcomponents of the double-digit EPS growth. So it seems like the biggest driver of that growth is that $200 million of cost cuts that'll be completed by the end of 2024. So how do we think about, like, the pacing of that? Is that, like, mostly come in 2024, or is that really kind of like a 2025 benefit? Can you walk us through, sort of how that plays out?
Yeah, sure. So, the $200 million of restructuring benefits really started at the beginning of 2023, when we reorganized the company, went to a four-segment structure, and about a half of that was recognized in 2023. Most of that was offset with reinvestments we had to do in the business around our implants business, DSOs, clinical education events, our ERP investment, quality, and so forth. But about half of that was already recognized this year. The vast majority of the remaining part of the restructuring will be realized in 2024, so call that $90 million-$100 million. The last pieces of the restructuring plan surround headcount, and that was just recently completed in Germany, so we got all the approvals now in Germany, which was the last major country where we had some headcount reductions planned.
We still have a few more pieces to go, but clearly the headcount piece is, call it, complete. We just have to now execute the remaining part of that plan.
Yeah.
Non-headcount, we still have some work to do. We still are working on consolidating some of our marketing spend with vendors, renegotiating contracts around our fleet, around our wireless services and wireless service providers, looking at temps and contractors and reducing spend there. So we still have work to do on non-headcount, but I would expect, you know, essentially $90 million-$100 million come through in 2024. We will invest and reinvest some of that back into the business. I said during the Investor Day, about half of that will be reinvested back in the business. So you could think of that as about a $0.15 benefit in 2024 that we feel very good about. The other part of the EPS improvement will come from net investment hedging that we've already completed.
Mm-hmm.
I just finished that this past month. There's about a $0.06-$0.07 benefit we'll get in 2024 as well. Between the two of those, gets us $0.22-$0.23, which is double-digit EPS growth, and-
And that's like, like, all of those things are not macro.
Correct.
Okay.
Yeah, correct. So we talked about, you know, 2024 being an inflection year for EPS and profitability improvement, regardless of the macro situation. Obviously, if it deteriorated, it would create pressure for us, but even in a stable macro environment, we feel like we could have a meaningful improvement to our EBITDA margins, where we said at least 100 basis points of EBITDA margin improvement in 2024, and each of the next three years.
Yep.
With a total of 500 basis points over the three-year window, and double-digit EPS growth. And again, if we can get organic revenue growth on top of that, do some additional things around the business, we feel like 2024 is set up to be a good year. But to your point, we're not counting on the macro environment improving, especially in the first half of the year at this point.
Yeah
... given everything that we're seeing.
That makes sense. Maybe just to sort of ask a similar question on the SKU rationalization that you guys have been talking about. I know you've talked about sort of the need to be obviously very careful in terms of how you do it. Is that kind of a similar thing, where it's sort of a little bit in 2024 and then kind of accelerates as we think about 2025 and 2026?
Yeah, so we've done a lot of good work around the SKU rationalization piece, really around our endo and resto portfolios. So Tony Johnson did a nice job laying this out at our Investor Day.
Yeah.
We have tens of thousands of SKUs coming out. There's a big benefit we'll see, and people say, "Well, what's- how do you get a benefit from doing SKU rationalization?" Well, obviously, we have lower inventory levels required to keep on these SKUs, lower E&O reserves, lower sustaining engineering costs, don't have to do all the regulatory filings, don't have to start and restart the manufacturing lines.
Yep.
You know, and that's a big deal in terms of some of these actually being down for, you know, six to seven hours to change over the manufacturing lines. It also helps to actually simplify our footprint. So there's many benefits associated with it. We expect that we'll see really the start of those at the very end of 2024, so I wouldn't expect much to happen in 2024. Really 2025 and 2026 is when we're gonna see the benefit associated with that work.
Yep.
The reason why you're not gonna see it in 2024 is, you know, we wanna be thoughtful about how we do this. We wanna make sure we give our customers enough time to transition to new SKUs, give them an opportunity to do last-time buys. So we are keeping the customer front and center in all of our decisions.
Mm
... and making sure that we minimize any disruption from that point of view. So that, coupled with the fact it takes time to actually move some of the manufacturing, would enable us to probably realize a little bit maybe in 2024, but most of it will come in 2025 and 2026.
Got it. That makes sense.
Mm-hmm.
And then maybe sort of on some of the non-operating side, you know, I think Pillar Two is something that's become increasingly in focus from-
Mm
... from, the investor perspective at least. I think you talked about that as part of the Investor Day, that the tax rate would be higher. And then potentially something, you know, some offsets and tax restructuring, et cetera. So how should we think about that as we look over the long-term period that you laid out?
Yeah, so in our bridge from where we are today, which call it $1.80-$1.85 to the $3, I have $0.15 of improvement coming from, you know, non-operational items.
Yep.
It consists of really three different components. So one is the share buybacks.
Yeah.
We announced a $1 billion additional share buyback authorization from our board right before the Investor Day. That gives us a total of $1.6 billion-
Yep.
-when you include our previous approved plan. We announced also we're gonna have $150 million of shares repurchased by the end of this year, and then my assumption is we will buy back about $600 million over the next three years. That gets you some meaningful EPS accretion based upon share price assumptions.
Yeah.
The second piece is the Net Investment Hedging, and again, we'll see about $0.07 starting in 2024, and that $0.07 benefit will continue over the three-year window. Then that'll be offset somewhat by a higher tax rate. I would just say, we know there's gonna be certain things that expire on our tax rate that's gonna be a headwind for us, but we're working on some tax planning opportunities that's directly tied with a lot of the footprint work that we're doing-
Mm.
-that could enable us to get some, tax benefits to hopefully get us back to where we are today. But given that I don't actually have a plan and some tangible things in place today, I thought it was conservative to say, "Yeah, here's what I know today-
Yep.
Knowing that we're striving to do better around the tax rate." But yeah, we would expect at the moment to see a higher tax rate over the next three years. But net-net, those three areas, you know, share buyback, Net Investment Hedging, and the, the offset of tax should get us about a $0.15 benefit, you know, over the three-year window.
No, that makes a ton of sense. Maybe switching to sort of the demand environment. You know, I think you talked about half of your portfolio being sort of less economically sensitive. So we have Wellspect-
Mm
... which is a relatively small portion of your revenue, but, you know, should be growing, you know, mid-single digits next year. Essential Dental should be relatively more immune, given that it's essential, as you say.
Yes.
How do we think about the sensitivity of that essential dental piece? 'Cause I know people are sort of looking back, "Okay, what did Dentsply do, like, you know, way back when in 2008, and things like that?" So how do we think about kind of the economic sensitivity of that segment?
Yeah, I think to your point, Wellspect is obviously not sensitive to the macro pressures. It's a chronic,
Yeah
... condition that our patients use our products for. So I-
With reimbursement, right?
With reimbursement and everything else.
Yeah.
So that should be very stable, even in a difficult macro environment. When we think about essential dental, there's really three different buckets. So preventive is one of the areas. For us, that's largely a U.S., U.K., and DACH business, so DACH being Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Mm-hmm.
Those are usually covered by insurance-
Yep
... and any delta from a macro environment perspective is really tied to unemployment rate spiking. So-
Yep
... as long as that doesn't happen, we feel pretty good. It'll be stable in terms of preventive. Endodontics, obviously, if you need a root canal procedure, you maybe could push it off a little bit, but you're probably gonna get the procedure done.
Right, you're in pain.
Yeah, you're in pain, you're gonna lose a tooth, whatever.
Yeah.
So, that, we believe, is not sensitive to the macro environment, and some of the restorative procedures are. I think for most part they're not, but, that is tied to patient volume. So we see patient volumes dropping, that would usually indicate there's probably a drop in the restorative area.
It might be a little bit of, like, trade down in terms of composite versus not, or whatever.
Correct. Yeah.
That's not dollar-wise as big as some of the... Yeah.
Yeah, correct. So I think for the most part, you're exactly right. About half the portfolio is not really sensitive to the macro situation. Obviously, when you think about aligners, some, you know, full arch implant cases, equipment, those are areas that are more subject to a macro recession. And, you know, we have seen headwinds in the equipment side, especially higher end equipment in certain markets. In particular, Germany-
Mm
... is one we've called out. And so, you know, we have seen that so far, and hopefully as rates start to now stabilize and come down, we'll see an improvement in that part of our business as we get into 2024.
No, that makes sense. And then, just thinking about, I know you talked about obviously there's a lot—you're doing a ton of work on the cost and things like that. Are there additional cost levers or ways to sort of think about the OpEx side, if the growth, you know, the end markets really do slow next year? Or you sort of balance that versus obviously kind of the longer term opportunity that you guys have.
Yeah, I think we do balance it, and I think the most important thing for us is that we stay focused on the plans we have in place, and not look for more incremental things at the moment. There's obviously things we're looking at that could drive some incremental benefit, but we have still work to do around the restructuring program.
Yeah.
Let's get that work done. That's gonna help us going into next year.
Yeah.
The SKU work needs to continue to advance. You know, being now over a year in the job, I have some more, more ideas-
Nice
... around where to go, which we'll talk about more as we get into 2024. But I think the point is, we're not really counting on a big macro improvement next year. And even with that, if we stay focused on the plans we have in place, we feel like we can drive a meaningful improvement to profitability next year. And so, yeah, of course, we're looking for more opportunities, but I think we gotta stay focused on getting done the work that's currently planned, and then we'll take on some additional initiatives. But, again, we feel quite good about what we have in place, and most of it's in our control and a lot of it's already been done.
Mm.
That's the good news.
Good to see. Okay, so maybe digging into some of the longer, longer term drivers. I, I know at the Investor Day you talked about Byte now has a traditional, like a traditional at home business, as well as the new hybrid solution. I feel like one of the few areas we didn't get to dig into at the Investor Day, which we dug into a lot of things, is that: What is the hybrid solution?
Okay.
You know, I think it's a pilot now, and so, like, could you talk a little bit about what that is?
Okay
... and where the opportunity in that product lies?
Yeah, sure. So we have two brands: SureSmile, which is sold-
Yep
... in office. Byte is a direct-to-consumer business.... traditionally and historically.
Yeah.
You know, Byte has done quite well, and obviously, we have some competitive dynamics that are favorable right now in the space for us.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, for us, I think we're looking at what could make sense from a patient perspective, and how can we drive even better conversion at the direct-to-consumer level? So, one of the things we're doing is piloting certain markets to do this hybrid approach, where you actually get a consult with a clinician.
Hmm.
You go through an initial treatment plan, get a scan done, and then you do most of the rest of the treatment plan at home.
Okay.
But it gives you an additional level of confidence going in-
Yeah
... talking to somebody. There's benefits from the patient side, getting more confident in the actual treatment. Obviously, on the clinician side, it's potentially a new patient for you and a new patient that could come in the door-
Yeah
... for other procedures, which today-
Yeah
... most of these patients on the direct-to-consumer side don't traditionally go to a dentist or get their teeth cleaned-
Yeah
... and all that type of stuff. So, we think there's an opportunity on both sides of the equation. We're starting off in some of the smaller markets initially, and it's only a handful. So it's markets like Las Vegas, Tucson, Fargo. We will eventually roll out to many markets, and starting probably in the next couple of weeks, we'll go to some bigger markets. We've got very positive feedback so far in the first couple we've done-
Okay
... both on the consumer side as well as on our customer side. So we'll roll out to bigger markets like Miami, Dallas, L.A. And as we go forward, we'll continue to see whether we get higher conversion rates, whether there's increased adoption. It's important to note, though, that the customers that are part of the trial-
Mm-hmm
... also are part of an advisory panel with us, and they also are big SureSmile users.
Okay. Yeah, that was gonna be my next question.
Yeah.
How do you differentiate between that and SureSmile?
Yeah, because, well, why we wanted to do that is, obviously some of these may be more complex cases-
Mm-hmm
... where Byte and just doing the treatment from home may not make a lot of sense. So we want to actually have them use SureSmile and go through a much more comprehensive treatment plan-
Mm-hmm
... and convert them to SureSmile, if that's a possibility for-
Yeah
... both the customer and for the patient. So that's the reason why we want to have our SureSmile users. And again, a lot of these more simple cases can be done at home, but if it's a more complex case, probably requires a more comprehensive treatment plan, and you probably want to have more touch points with the clinician.
Yeah.
So we'll see how it goes. So far, so good. Like I said, next couple of weeks, we'll be rolling out to some of the bigger markets. And again, I think some of these competitive dynamics that are playing out in this space are very favorable for us. We actually think we're creating a bigger market opportunity here, though, because a lot of these patients, again, wouldn't be going to the dentist.
Yeah.
If you can actually get them to move into an aligner, it's probably opening up the aligner market to a bigger market.
And, do the clinicians get a fee for that initial consult with the Byte?
They do.
The hybrid Byte.
They do.
Okay.
They-
They're incentivized not only that, but also the future potential prospect of the customers, but they do get something.
They do get a fee for that, and, you know, it's a win-win scenario from our perspective. And so,
Yeah
... so far, we've gotten very positive feedback. There's an ease of use with our software that comes with this as well-
Yeah
... our Byte app. So we feel very good between SureSmile and Byte, the complementary nature of the two-
Mm
... how we're approaching it, should drive double-digit growth for us going forward.
Yeah. No, that makes sense. And how do we think about the SureSmile margins, on that business? Like, I know, obviously, as that business continues to scale, I assume they'll get better, but sort of how do we think about the opportunity there on the market side?
Yeah, yeah. I think ortho in general, so you take the two together-
Yeah
... you know, we don't report it out separately as part of implants as well from a sales perspective.
Well, I took my protractor on the graph.
You figured it all out, huh? But ortho is less profitable than our corporate average.
Yeah.
SureSmile is not really the drag on profitability, it's our Byte business.
Okay.
Byte is profitable, but it is dilutive to the corporate average. I think for us, we've seen a meaningful improvement in profitability, and really, it's come from a couple different areas. Number one, we've done a much better job of targeting customers-
Mm-hmm
... through our social media and digital platforms from a marketing perspective. So we're very efficient now, how we go about interacting and engaging customers, and improving customer conversion rates, which is critical in this space.
Mm-hmm.
So in a typical direct-to-consumer, where you don't have this hybrid model, you know, you say you're interested, we send you the impression kit, you do the impressions, gets sent to a location where we do a treatment plan, send it back to you. In that, well, a 10-day, 12-day window, do you actually move forward and purchase the product when everything is finished?
Yeah.
That conversion rate is actually quite low-
Okay
... surprisingly.
Even for people who have done the Byte, yeah.
Even if they've done the impression, and we've spent and sunk all the costs in that whole process, right?
Yep, yep.
Bringing these conversion rates up has been a big focus for us, and they have come up in a meaningful way for us now.
Yeah.
It's still below 50%, just to give you some context. But as those conversion rates come up, the cost of customer acquisition goes down-
Mm-hmm
... and helps to really improve not just the top line, but profitability. And then the second aspect of this business is, we've been much more selective on who we finance in this population. So in the past, it's been anybody that wants financing got it.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, now we're being much more selective, and our cost-
You're financing that part? Yeah.
We are financing or paying for somebody to finance on our behalf.
Got it.
Offloading to a third party, and our financing costs have come down in a meaningful way, and that's helped the profitability of the business as well. But we still have a ways to go. You know, part of our bridge to $3, I did have a bar in there that talks about ortho profitability improvement.
Yeah, $0.05 you said.
$0.05, yep.
Yeah.
We are working to get more profitability benefit as we go forward.
Got it. And just as you're just maybe one last question on this, as you're thinking about that improved targeting and things, can you just remind us of, like, know what's the typical, like, how would you describe the typical Byte customer versus the typical SureSmile customer?
I think the Byte customer, low-income customer, doesn't go to the dentist, on a frequent basis for sure. So they're very sensitive to price.
Yep.
It's more of a simplistic aligner case.
Yep.
SureSmile in-office requires a more comprehensive treatment plan. More expensive, obviously, because you're going back to the clinician.
Right.
And-
It's mostly sort of a function of acuity of the case and customer income is-
Yeah
... those are the two big drivers.
Yeah.
Okay, got it. Okay, within implants, you know, we've heard a lot about, maybe just switching over to that, a lot about sort of share shift, and obviously, you guys have a much like new offering in terms of new products and the platforming of some of your prior solutions. How do we think about sort of the current environment versus some of the share shifts we've been hearing about, and, like, where are the biggest opportunities for you there?
You know, I think when we look at our implants business, first and foremost, we've done really well in the value implant side of our business. We've struggled on-
Yep
... premium, and, you know, we've lost market share in the U.S., we've lost market share coming into this year in China. We've really turned the corner, though, on some of these markets. So in China, as an example, we were one of the winners on VBP.
Yep.
We took the pricing haircut on the premium side. We've now seen the turn on volume to the point where it's so significant it's actually offset all of the price reduction, and actually we're putting up growth now in China, which we were not expecting-
Yeah
... when we started the year.
And I think previously you were saying sort of flat for China for the year, so now - okay, so like low single digits.
Yeah
... something like that?
Yeah, it maybe even better-
Okay
... I mean, from some of the trends. But our volumes are up meaningfully, and so that's, that's a very good sign as we go into 2024, and it's in the value side and premium side.
Mm.
So we didn't really discount much on the value side. So from a mix perspective, that's helping us on the pricing side.
Mm-hmm.
Both public and private sector has shown really strong growth for us.
Yep.
And we're clearly capturing share, especially on the public side. So, yeah, on the whole, we feel very good about what we're doing in China. In the U.S., I, I would say things have not gone as fast as we would have hoped, if I'm being candid.
Yep.
We've got the sales force in place. We've done all of the training. We're doing more clinical education events. We just did a world summit in Greece in 2023. We have a big summit planned here in Miami in June of 2024.
You'd like to invite us, us to the Greece event too?
I have to give back to you-
Yeah
... after you invited me here, right? But, yeah, so in June, we're doing a big, world summit-
Nice
… in Miami. It just shows that we're putting a lot more behind it in terms of clinical education. A big part of our value is around being digitally connected across our entire portfolio, including implants.
Yep.
And so we think with DS Core now, that should help the overall portfolio in, in all the markets that we, we're talking about. Then we did an in-depth comprehensive survey with over 2,000 customers around the portfolio, and so, you know, our teams told us when we came in, both Simon and I, "Hey, we have a good portfolio that's very competitive." We tested that. We actually went to the customers and asked them, "Do we have a gap in our implants portfolio?" And it came back resoundingly, "No. You guys have a really good portfolio.
Yeah.
We figure we got the portfolio. It really comes down to sales force execution, doing more clinical education events, continuing to drive DS Core and being digitally connected.
Mm-hmm.
If we do those things, I feel very good about our implants turnaround. Yeah, the U.S., we've seen market share erosion. Our goal is to stabilize here in the fourth quarter and then get back to growth in 2024.
Great. No, that makes sense. Maybe switching over to intraoral scanner, I know one of the themes this year is we've heard about sort of lower pricing in that market. How do you sort of see pricing in that market now? You know, obviously, you guys launched the Primescan Connect .
Mm.
Like, how has the traction been on that? Yeah, maybe start to run the trends there.
Yeah. I always start off by saying, you know, a scanner is a product, and we try to wrap everything from a scanner into our DS Core-
Yep
... solution and being digitally connected, and that's a continuous message you're gonna hear from Dentsply Sirona and everything.
Yep.
Because if we're just selling a product, at the end of the day, that's not what we want our customers to see us as.
Mm.
We wanna be the full product provider and solution company that actually improves their workflows, reduce their costs, and drives significant benefits to their practice. In terms of the scanners themselves, you know, there is price headwinds. There's certainly pricing pressure in the scanner market. We did launch, to your point, Primescan Connect last year. We've seen very good traction, especially in certain markets like Europe.
Mm.
We have actually taken our prices down on Primescan Connect and seen, you know, meaningful improvements in volume. So we are testing out price sensitivity in certain markets to see if it's gonna drive more volume.
Yep.
It has done that in markets like Europe. We still see some really good growth and demand coming on chairside. You know, still seeing good growth on the standalone digital side, especially with PrimeScan Connect. But I think, you know, market to market, it does differ. In Latin America, as an example, we're seeing really nice pickup in a lot of refurbished units.
Mm.
Some of these units also get leased and financed and so forth. So if you think about Latin America, maybe a different market in terms of how we think about it. You know, Europe, PrimeScan Connect, same with Asia, seeing really good demand with chairside and PrimeScan AC in the U.S. So we feel good about the portfolio, but yeah, there is pricing pressure still, I would say.
Okay
... on the scanner side. There's lower-cost alternatives, and it comes down to cost, and you want a lower scanner, they're out there.
Right.
If you really want the full solution that's digitally connected to everything you do in your practice, you want Dentsply Sirona.
... Yep. No, that makes sense. And then maybe just sort of talking about equipment more broadly, how are you sort of thinking about the demand for treatment centers and imaging, versus, you know, we just talked about scanners?
Yeah, I think treatment centers, imaging, higher-end purchases in a dental practice. So obviously, if you look at the last couple of quarters, these have been areas of decline in the-
Yeah
-portfolio.
For sure.
Treatment center is probably the number one market is Germany.
Mm-hmm.
Germany right now is probably our, our most challenging market. The combination of that has led to declines. I think for us, again, the digital play is really important when we think about these products. But-
Yeah
... we're probably gonna see pressure in these parts of our business, the higher-end parts of our equipment business for the next few quarters. I mean, the good news is rates now are starting to come down. We're trying to help customers with different aspects of financing that may move them forward on a purchase, especially if it's a competitive situation.
Mm-hmm.
So we'll see how that plays out. But, you know, we're not expecting to see an immediate turn on the high-end equipment market anytime soon. I think as rates start to come down, we'll start to see a better situation. And again, Germany is an important market for us. So, as Germany starts to come out of a recession here, hopefully, that's gonna help the situation.
Germany started getting weak in 2Q?
Yeah.
Is that the way, right? Yeah.
And we do a very extensive customer survey around what's going on in their practices.
Yeah
... what they're seeing in patient trends. It's probably the most extensive survey that's out there.
If you'd like to publish that, I'd be very curious.
Uh, yes.
Or just send it to me.
Yeah, it's thousands of customers and we do it globally.
Yeah.
So we hit all the key markets that we participate in. We saw in Q2, before the actual, notes came out from many of the analysts and so forth, that Germany was gonna be in for a rough ride.
Yeah.
Our customers told us, you know, they were seeing staffing shortages, and it was the highest in the world at the time.
Yeah.
The cost of their practices has gone way up. They were seeing reduction in patient volumes, patient cancellations started to go way up. So all the trends were turning negative, and so we became much more bearish on Germany. We called that out.
Right, yeah
... back on our second quarter call-
Yeah, yep
... before others started really talking about it. And, yeah, it hasn't really seen much of a turn yet, but hopefully, as we get to the end of the year and go into next year, we'll start to see a better situation there.
Yeah.
Why we call it out is it's 10% of our consolidated sales.
Right.
So it's our second-
Not German equipment, but Germany-
Germany in general.
Total, yeah.
Total sales.
Right, that makes sense. So in one of the slides from your Investor Day, which is slide 83, for those of you playing along at home, it talks about commercial investments in DSOs.
Yes.
We talked about some of the investments that you're making in aligners and in implants more broadly, but how do you think about your DSO strategy and, you know, with all these changes that you and Simon have been making in the organization?
Yeah. Well, we've had a big focus on DSOs. Obviously, if you look at the trends of DSOs in the U.S. in particular-
Yeah
... you know, it's probably over the next five years, gonna double in terms of the size of DSOs, you know, from 20%-40% or something like that.
Yep.
So we've put a much greater focus on it. We've added more resources. I think the key for us, though, is DS Core and how DS Core can benefit a DSO and all the practices that are part of a DSO.
Mm-hmm.
So we're doing a lot of experimentation now with DS Core Enterprise, with these large DSOs to figure out how we can help, you know, help them and how we can make it unique to their practices.
Yeah
... so DS Core, I think, is a key investment area for us as we go forward. You know, for DS Core, you know, we charge a subscription fee of $20 a month to several hundred dollars a month, you know, depending on storage-
Yep
... features, and functionality that determine-
The iCloud, the iCloud model.
The iCloud model. So it's really all of those areas that determine what a customer's gonna pay.
Yep.
The fee itself is not what's important. It's really being digitally connected to everything in the portfolio.
Yep.
So-
Yeah
... you know, for us, it's a key part of our strategy, but, that's what we're doing with the DSOs. Simon and I, Simon and myself, the entire MC, are spending a lot of time with DSO CEOs, CFOs, to really show our commitment to this space. You know, on the implant side, we're doing much more clinical education. I talked about some of the events globally, worldwide.
Mm-hmm.
We're doing a lot of more local events as well. I think that's the key for us there. And on aligners, you know, we're not done investing there either. We just did a couple of trips, Simon and I, to Japan and Brazil. Japan, we're gonna be expanding our sales force in aligners. We see it as a bigger market opportunity, so we've already approved additional heads there. And we're launching both, SureSmile and DS Core in Brazil in the first quarter of 2024.
Okay.
So we're gonna be ramping up resources there to address that market need. So still lots of runway, for the aligner space, but those are the three key areas that we're investing in, and if you think about where the growth of the company's gonna come from, those are the areas over the next three to five years.
Yeah, that makes sense. In our final 30 seconds, I'm gonna sneak one more in. You mentioned $135 million in investment for the ERP system. Can you talk about the timing of that and then the sort of split? Is that CapEx, it's OpEx, sum of both?
Yeah, so most of it will be CapEx, probably 75% is a rough order of magnitude estimate, you know, and that gets depreciated once it's put into service and over 10 years.
Yeah.
Just to give you some sense about-
Yep
... the depreciation of, of that. Some of it will be OpEx for subscriptions. Obviously, that's part of our P&L. Some of it will be one-time expenses associated with doing the integration.
Yep.
But the vast majority is CapEx, and I would say, you know, over a third of the CapEx and OpEx will come in 2024.
Okay.
It'll start to wind down as we get towards the end of the three-year window, but we should be done with order to cash, procure to pay, logistics and warehousing by the end of 2026.
Perfect. Well, I mean, who doesn't want to end on a ERP note?
Yeah, of course.
So we're out of time, unfortunately.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
Pleasure.
Pleasure.
Yes, absolutely.
Take care.
Thanks. Thanks, everybody.