Great. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to day two of the BofA Healthcare Conference. I'm Michael Cherny, the healthcare tech and distribution analyst. It's my pleasure to have with us Dentsply Sirona, Simon Campion, still new-ish CEO.
New-ish.
I think you get ish for the first year.
You get ish for the first year.
Andrea Daley from IR joining us in the crowd as well. Really appreciate you coming here. I guess maybe using, we'll call it a state of the world dynamically. Been in job for about nine months now, I think, give or take. I guess let's just start with, what have you been most positively surprised about and most, I guess, worried about in terms of... We'd probably find a better word, but, as you stepped in, with you and Glenn joining the C-suite.
I'll start at the back end. I think, you know, the work that we have underway now is really an artifact of integration that hadn't been completed with the merger of Dentsply and Sirona. That's work that we're doing right now. Work on processes such as R&D. You know, we announced at earnings that we're going to do a lot of work on ERP, where we just, you know, signed up for that. Even some of the margin improvements that we'd seen over the past couple of years were really taking low-hanging fruit as opposed to making foundational changes to the company.
That's the work that we have underway, whether it's R&D process, whether it's ERP, whether it's SKU rationalization, whether it's network optimization. We announced two facilities being closed just at earnings last week. That's what we say the bad news side of the equation. On the positive side, you know, we still sell about $1 billion a quarter despite sometimes our best efforts. We have a pretty strong product portfolio that encompasses all aspects of dental care. We are, you know, I think at the forefront of the digital transformation that's in the industry.
You know, the people that we have in the team, they've simply been just crying out for stable and inclusive and transparent leadership. You know, we're beginning to see the pivot in some of the data that we have internally about do people want to come to work at Dentsply Sirona ? We think that's really important that we get that correct first.
I like the fact that you and Glenn, you know, other senior leaders you brought in, have come in with a very fresh set of eyes and kind of clear mind on, let's save the portfolio and, you know, make the best of what we have here and continue to build forward. You listed a lot of stuff from a priority perspective, and I know that we're gonna be seeing it over the next two quarters, then the November Analyst Day you plan to do. How do you think about prioritizing what should come first? I guess maybe this is kind of like that old analogy of which patient do you save when there's some mass casualty type dynamic, but I'm not overstating it.
Yeah.
Like, how do you think about the best ways? Like, you know, does one feed the other? Does some of the facility rationalization get you better equipped on the cost side as you roll in ERP, so you're not doing duplicative efforts? Like, how do you balance the and mix all those together?
Well, you know, I think the overarching thing is this org transformation that we're going through where we have, as of April first, restructured how we work together. You know, the effect of Dentsply and Sirona coming together was a lot of duplicity in terms of functions and people and processes. Streamlining that into one leadership team under Andreas Frank is gonna help us make decisions faster, make higher quality decisions, and hold people accountable for what they do. The SKUs we communicated before, and it's different groups for the most part that are doing this, so we're not asking the same, you know, 15 people to do this work. The SKUs, we have 90,000 SKUs there or thereabout.
The vast majority don't contribute anything meaningful to revenue. You know, they have just got out of control. We have all the analytics done now on preventive and Restorative or Restorative and Endodontics rather. What we're doing now, we want to be thoughtful about how we do it. You know, point number one for us is don't give up any revenue unless it's revenue you don't want, as in, you know, really low marginal revenue. We're actually in some countries in Europe on some product lines right now testing our hypothesis. Can we migrate customer from product A to product B, and what will the result of that be? We don't expect to see any benefits of that this year.
We expect to see benefits at the back end of next year. It should afford us an opportunity to rationalize our network footprint. We believe that. They're just two of the big triggers that we're going after.
Interesting about that, just to pick on that a little bit or pick through it. In terms of to the X-ray side, how much of it is a mix of the cost benefit side, I clearly get if you can refocus, especially on higher margin products. How much of that does it also open up an opportunity with customers to potentially expand, to potentially build penetration? You're using this as an example of, "Hey, we're swapping out X for Y, but we also sell A, B, C, D that you are purchasing from someone else.
Again, I know I maybe sound like a cracked or scratched record, but the lack of integration that was clearly evident hampered that effort entirely. There was just simply not enough collaboration between both sides, Dentsply and Sirona. We didn't invest in areas like DSOs. We simply didn't invest in areas like DSOs or even the university footprint. I was at a university in New York yesterday. They Dentsply Sirona didn't want to do business with these guys. Again, streamlining the portfolio, having one, you know, throat to throttle, investing behind the DSOs is super important, and we share that earnings, some of the traction that we have begun to get with DSOs.
A year ago, they didn't want to talk to us. Now they're actually partnering with us. They're using our facilities to train their employees. We saw above accretive growth to Dentsply Sirona from our DSO business, and we gave some examples, where, you know, we placed several dozen PrimeScan in one DSO in particular, and it drove, you know, significant volume on the aligner business, on the SureSmile business for them. That is just one example of how we can partner with DSOs to meaningfully grow. You know, we should have a disproportionate share of wallet in DSOs given our portfolio.
Those examples, I think, bring me to my next line of topics. Obviously, you reported results last week, put up a, from all intents and purposes, a monster organic growth quarter, which, I mean, really impressive work there. How do you think about some of those drivers that you saw come through in the quarter?
Mm-hmm.
I know there's been moving pieces on numbers in the past, but either way, on a reported basis, on a total number basis, the number was quite strong. How do you think about where the biggest pockets of growth were and what you think are more natural market-oriented versus some of those activities like DSOs that you've already... I know that's one example, but other areas where you've been able to make your mark and the team's been able to really push forward on an offensive side.
Well, I. Certainly the. I think the expression clock speed will resonate. The clock speed of our organization is going up. The intensity, in business reviews is going up. You know, we've two full days of business reviews every month. If it moves, it's measured. We are holding people accountable for performance now. There were great performance in consumables. Some of that was, you know, reestablishing a baseline within our distributor, but the end market growth, the retail growth was also pretty strong. You know, we shared data with everyone, but still some pressure on the technology side that we're seeing as a result of, you know, the macroeconomic conditions. We are still...
You know, we have been cautious in our outlook for the rest of the year, given the history of our company, given the macroeconomic environment. Still, you know, we raised the bottom end of guidance. We, you know, Barring any, you know, apocalyptic macro things, we think we're gonna have a, you know, a solid year across all our portfolio. We've had, you know, good traction with PrimeScan Connect. You know, our, you know, scanners is a gate opener into the industry. Our scanner, our PrimeScan is, you know, it's a high-end. We think it's the best scanner quality perspective on the marketplace, but clearly it's a premium price.
We launched a lower priced kind of mid-tier version called PrimeScan Connect at DS World last September. You know, last quarter, we got great traction, particularly in Europe on that. You know, we're not getting out ahead of our skis here, but we are definitely getting on the front foot. It's, you know, it's time to stop losing at Dentsply Sirona.
In that, I wanna get back into the PrimeScan portfolio. Excuse me. That brings up an important, I would say, philosophical question that came out, I know, from Q1 earnings. It's this whole dynamic of you put up really strong results on an annualization basis. In a normalized world, people would think, "Okay, maybe guidance should already go up." You look at the factors, it's Q1 . You have macro pressures that you can't predict.
Like you said, the history of the company is such where it seems like the baseline you want to establish, that Glenn wants to establish is, "Let's put out numbers we know we can beat and then work from there." I guess along that lines and philosophy, and maybe you already answered this with kind of the expecting a good year, but I didn't expect any guidance increase at 1Q, maybe just because of the flow of last year and all the changes, but you did increase the bottom end of the range. How do you think philosophically about that way that you're continuing to communicate with that transparent effect as you settle into the role here?
Listen, we've had a number of missteps. We certainly didn't. You know, after one quarter, you know, the discussion never came up about are we gonna raise the top end. We did discuss the bottom end. You know, the momentum that we have in the company, we said what we're gonna do last year, and we think we did it. Everything we've communicated about our plans moving forward, I think if you checked everything we have said we would do, we have done it. The employee engagement is increasing, so we feel positive about our organization. We already feel pretty positive about our portfolio.
We have seen that the re-engagement of our organization with our distribution partners globally and DSOs, just to mention two, is heading in a positive direction. I think all those things feed into, you know, cautious optimism about the rest of the year. Certainly, we don't wanna, we don't wanna get out ahead of ourselves.
No. I appreciate that approach. Maybe let's start to dive into the product portfolio a little bit beyond what we've talked about. Bless you.
Bless you.
Maybe we'll start with the PrimeScan family, which obviously is an incredibly important focal point. You have this ongoing debate of price points within the market, and you talked about introducing a mid-level product with versus the high-end PrimeScan, which I think is generally known as a premium product. As we settle into this market and as workflows become more important, and then also worries about financing capabilities or whatnot, how do you think about the demand curve, the order book that's been building. Tied to your bifurcated product line on IOS.
Well, certainly we've PrimeScan Connect has had, you know, very robust traction in Europe in particular in the first quarter, you know, sequential month-over-month growth. What we've also seen to a lesser extent is as PrimeScan is introduced, and the capability of PrimeScan Connect is not quite the same as PrimeScan AC, but it can connect to PrimeMill, for example. As we introduce the concept of digitalizing the your dental office, we've seen some people flip from, hey, I want PrimeScan Connect to I want PrimeScan AC. We think it's a good door opener for introducing the other aspects of our portfolio. As we, you know, we have a great scanner.
We have great chairside milling. We have a very robust 3D printer. I know there's a lot of debate out there right now about milling versus printing. Maybe someday 3D printing will take over milling, but that's not today, and it's not tomorrow.
Either way, you're positioned in both.
Yeah.
Maybe thinking about too, just the market and you have the ability to break down the different products versus what had been historically Dentsply Sirona's legacy as the all-encompassing best-in-class full chairside CAD/CAM. As you go into, whether it's existing customers, where they're looking for replacements, upgrades, or particularly new customers, how has that discussion evolved in terms of the piecemeal approach versus the just buy everything against the current financing environment?
Well, we're exploring opportunities to help customers buy the more expensive digital products that we have. We think that our... You know, being a full line supplier is a blessing and a curse, right? It means everything is spread and to a greater extent with resources. We think it affords us an opportunity, particularly in the DSO world, where we can do your whole house conversions, you know, into scanners, into chairside if they want to, and get into consumables and aligners. We think it's a position of strength, and it is something that we talk about robustly in our internal meetings to ensure that we're getting the biggest bang for our buck in these spaces.
We should be getting pull-through, and we're beginning to have those discussions about what that really looks like in the company.
Along those lines, typically this has been a distributor-led financing market. You talked about ways to explore customers. What would that kind of look like, and how would that partner with your distribution partners?
Again, we haven't thought about it in any great deal that we're ready to roll out anything, and nor have we discussed it with our distribution partners. You know, given the fact that we have PrimeScan, for example, PrimeScan Connect or PrimeScan AC and our aligner business, is there an opportunity to bundle those two things together in a compliant manner? Again, that's... We're in a position where we can have those discussions, and we'll need to bring our distribution partners into those discussions. If we were just a standalone capital equipment supplier, we would all be in a race to the bottom with respect to pricing.
Got it. Then maybe just rounding out this part of the equipment portfolio, imaging. I know one of your peers called out meaningful pressures they're seeing on the imaging side. Remind us where you sit right now in terms of latest product iterations and what you're seeing, again, looking at that order book demand curve, which I know is obviously a big debate point across the dental space.
Yeah. I think we have. We saw softness in Q1 on the scanner side. I think there's certainly some softness that you and your peers have shared in our, in our own survey confirmed on the higher-end 2D, 3D imaging side. It hasn't. Sentiment hasn't worsened. We did a survey of about 300 people in February, and we did a survey of 1,600 people, or 1,569 to be exact, in April. You know, 220 something in the U.S. and in Fra-- Germany and U.K. were the biggest ones. one in four had reticence about purchasing expensive capital in those countries.
If you go to Australia, one in three had reticence about capital. Back to your question about, you know, you raise the lower end and the upper end, all those factors were affecting them. What's the demand for the capital piece? That's how it all tied in.
Got it. maybe let's shift gears a little bit in terms of aligners. SureSmile and, more recently Byte have been clear signs of strength and outperformance.
Yeah.
Maybe start with SureSmile. How do you think about the best places that you think this product is positioned in the market in what has become an increasingly competitive market? You obviously focus on GPs in particular, but how do you think about the rollout over time with into other areas in Orthodontics?
We're really pleased with our Orthodontics business. When I came into the role, I was asked two interesting questions, just to be a little humorous here for a second. The first one is why, the second one was, what are you gonna do with Byte? They were, for the most part, the first two questions. We're super happy with the performance of our Orthodontics business. Third quarter of double-digit growth. Our mix is about 55% Byte, 45% SureSmile. We've seen continual momentum in SureSmile. I think it's driven by the quality of our offering, by the focus of it. We have a dedicated sales force for both, but obviously, Byte is, you know, internal sales, shall we say, our direct consumer.
We have a dedicated sales force. We're not relying on our distribution partners to create the demand. You know, we have fewer patients need to go back on fewer occasions for refinement with SureSmile. And we are. You know, I think we had a reputation in the marketplace for just rolling with the punches. And, you know, a competitor does something, and we go, "That's fine. We'll, you know, we'll see them, you know, in six months' time." Those days are over. We are getting on the front foot in all aspects of our business. We are pushing aligners. We're pushing the clinical data we have on SureSmile. We have a good footprint with GPs.
We know Orthodontics are a key part for some of our competitors. We happen to be in GPs. We're very, very happy with that. On the Byte side, you know, we had a really strong quarter, low 30% growth rate for Byte. Great conversion rate. Our funnel is better. Our funnel is smaller, but it's a higher quality funnel as a result of a ton of the work that the team in Salt Lake City has done. Our conversion rates have gone up. The Byte app has increased our Net Promoter Score meaningfully over the past 6 months. Of course, that is targeted at a different part of our, a different part of the market.
The median income for Byte customers is about $63,000. Our caution on, you know, extrapolating three quarters of double-digit growth into the rest of the year and a, you know, tremendous quarter by Byte is our caution is tempered by the lower median income of those families and any impact that the macroeconomic, potential macroeconomic changes would have on them.
Maybe Byte, you know, got off to an interesting start. You know, Dentsply acquired it sort of two years ago. You had a massive upside growth of, you know, call it stimulus check or you can call it whatever you want, and then maybe expectations that kind of knocked, got knocked off kilter growth-wise, but really it's not like Byte went, you know, completely collapsed. It's just tough comps. Do you feel like where Byte is now is what you would expect to be the normalized consumer purchasing behavior, normalized growth rates? Are you still working through that push and pull on how much consumer demand is gonna shift?
I think it's the latter. I think it's, we're still working through it. who knows where this economy is going to go. You know, if you see, you know, relatively wealthy dental practices being reticent about spending $50,000 on a piece of capital equipment because of interest rates, you know, the, the, the individual on that median income is probably gonna be reticent about spending $2,000 on their teeth aligner or tooth alignment. I think it's, we're, we are, and people have said that we are being cautious, absolutely.
If we can deliver upside, we will deliver upside. It'll be a lot better discussion with the Mike Turners of the world if we're selling more as opposed to selling less.
It's usually a good way to go. I guess maybe then just on both SureSmile and Byte to level set, as we wrap this section, I feel like these products, both competitive markets on the professional DTC side, everyone's known for something. What do you want SureSmile and Byte to be within their markets as the what align? I've always thought about SureSmile as having great best in class or great workflow that builds onto the product capability, and you really win on workflow. I guess, do you agree? What do you think about, you know, how each one should be positioned?
Yeah. On SureSmile, you know, workflow is important. We're working on improving simulation. Thirdly, as I said, the clinical data that we have on SureSmile, we'll continue to acquire clinical data. I think that differentiates us. On the Byte, you know, we have a great patient interface with the Byte app. You know, we will launch Byte+ later in the year. We think that's going to enable our GP customers to get more patients into their funnel. You know, people typically don't get to go to the dentist often enough for their, you know, preventative care or just general, you know, hygiene.
We think that the Byte app can trigger patients to go to the dentist, engage with them about the Byte aligner solution, and then get on the schedule for regular maintenance for the patients. It benefits us, and it also benefits our GP partners in the sense that it drives more volume to them. When you combine that with the less refinements required on the SureSmile, you know, they have, I think it's three out of four patients on SureSmile don't need a refinement. You just opened up a slot, three slots for new patients coming into your practice, and we think maybe Byte+ can help with that.
Let's turn to the implant side of the world, if you can. Maybe just before we dive into China, where do you see the strength of the implant business? I know it's one that seemed to be in, you know, a state of maybe repositioning. I wouldn't necessarily say product side, but maybe, you know, market positioning. How do you, how do you feel attacking now the implant opportunity where, especially across both premium and value, Dentsply fits best?
Yeah. Premium, we had a tough quarter. Value, we had a good quarter. The, there was underinvestment in our, in our implant sales team over the past number of years, we've begun to remediate that. There was also, I think, we think, incentive programs that weren't aligned in the best interests of the company and investors and indeed the sales reps. We're now paying for growth. But it's a clinical sell. It takes a while to build that credibility with the, with the implantologists of the world. That work is underway now. Our reps are actually in, I think it's next week, they're in for more training on our implant portfolio.
We feel like we're doing the right thing with investment in the, in the commercial team and setting them up for success with incentives and with training. On the portfolio, you know, we probably have some gaps that we will begin to, we will begin to get after. I think part of the challenge back to the lack of integration, a lot of things come back to the lack of integration. Part of the challenge was that, we had separate R&D budgets, now we have one R&D budget, we're able to move money from pot A to pot B and focus on the areas of highest return. That's not to say we're gonna walk away from singles and doubles and preventive or resto.
focusing on areas where there are attractive growth rates, we're in control of our own destiny, there are good margins, and there are continued unmet clinical needs, they're the areas that we will disproportionately invest R&D dollars to go after.
That's, I'm glad you brought that up, because one of the things I've always wondered is, you know, any company, I don't cover that many products companies, I just keep more towards services. The product side, that dynamic of driving best, you know, best growth you can versus reinvesting in the business. You know, as you think about, I know you've made comments about holding R&D about 4% of total revenue. How do you make that balance of the right resource allocation to make sure that, to your point, you don't have holes in your product portfolio the way you want them, or you keep staying on top of the innovation side to roll out stuff like PrimeScan Connect and Byte+?
Yeah. One of the things we are driving and I think for the, for any of you, if you covered or invested in C. R. Bard, they were a great example of it. The proximity of the employees at Bard to their customers was unparalleled. We're trying to bring in that culture of customer centricity and proximity into Dentsply Sirona. So that as we come up with new ideas, that we can value them appropriately. Once you have them valued early on, then you can choose where you're gonna invest.
I want to be in a position where people are knocking down our doors to go, "Hey, I need money for this project first, and here's the value." We are not there yet, so we need to drive a culture of customer centricity and proximity, in addition to more discipline around how we value our R&D, our R&D projects, so that we invest appropriately, not ignoring, some singles and doubles off, you know, some incremental product launches. Then this all ties, you know, there are a lot of, you know, virtuous flywheels that we're trying to get spinning here.
As we think about SKU rationalization and reducing some of those SKUs, that will reduce the burden on us to do R&D maintenance on SKUs, such as EU MDR, and whatnot, which all comes out of the R&D budget. We reduce our SKU footprint in addition to the benefits of that from a cash perspective and a network perspective. It also allows a more of our 4% to go into true innovation more than just maintaining.
In the time we have left, China and VBP, the tone I heard from your call was cautious optimism. You know, certainly caution, optimism clearly shown through. I know one of the big focus points is the trade-off of pricing versus volume. Along those lines, you know, maybe in terms of what you've seen so far, what your expectations are, what is your visibility into that volume uplift as they've consolidated manufacturers and your positioning to offset some of the well-known price headwinds?
We think, in totality, 35%-40% of price erosion as a result of VBP, we were not selective in terms of the products that we put on VBP. All of our implant products were on VBP. I would say that we are very pleased with where we stand right now from a volume perspective. We would expect to offset all, if not the majority of that pricing headwind, through volume as we finish out this year. We've had a strong start to VBP in China, and we are optimistic. I think that's one of the reasons that's why we have said, "Hey, China is gonna...
We're gonna deliver growth in China this year.
Just to make sure I heard that right, most if not all within fiscal 2023 guidance?
That's what we expect.
I like to make sure I get that clear. Last question, I guess any teaser you can provide now for the November Analyst Day, or is it a little too early?
you know, the $3 EPS in 2026, we will speak about how we're gonna get there. A lot of the things I shared today we're gonna share more granularity about that. It's gonna be in Charlotte, so you'll get an opportunity to experience a great headquarters, not just because it's a nice building, but the resources that we have there that enable us to train or that enable our DSO partners and other customers to train their employees is impressive. We'll have, you know, full technology showcasing on the fourth floor.
I think you all will enjoy the experience of not only listening to Glenn and I speak about the financial stuff, but also experience the headquarters and what Dentsply Sirona is all about.
I'll be there.
Look forward to it.
Simon, Andrea, thanks so much.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.