DSD Founder and CEO, Christian Coachman, was interviewed at the 2018 Align Growth Summit in Copenhagen about the trajectory of his career and what dental technology has been game-changing in recent years. 

“At Digital Smile Design we often talk about the key concepts of creating differentiation and efficiency through new ideas. It’s always important to embrace change. It doesn’t matter how successful you are, nowadays, staying in your comfort zone is dangerous. It’s about adapting yourself and growing, regardless of what stage of your career you are at. It’s essential to understand how we can utilize new trends to create perceived value for your patients. The number 1 way to stay ahead of the game in dentistry: always be reinventing yourself." 

How do you get over the fear of change?

As humans, we are often scared of change. We don’t naturally like to change, we like things to stay the way they are. The best way to embrace change is to understand how it will affect our lives. If you own a dental office, change isn’t an option. It’s necessary unless you want to end up working for someone else. 

How to personally cope with change?

This is a question I am asked a lot. I think it’s a part of my character. I have had a unique professional career because I qualified as a dentist and also a technician. I was doing lab work for dentists while training as a dentist and decided that designing smiles in the lab was what I enjoyed the most. So even after graduating as a dentist I continued to work as a lab technician. While I was happy to be doing this work, in general, technicians make less money than dentists. I had to reinvent myself if I wanted to keep doing what I loved while earning the money that I wanted to make. I had to add value to what I was producing. So I created this new speciality of comprehensive smile designer; the architect of the smile. And I started to work with dentists and offered them this one-of-a-kind service. Once you introduce a new idea, you stand out and that adds value, which means clients are willing to pay more for your service. But then people start to copy that idea which means it’s no longer a new thing. So it’s about constantly reinventing and improving what you do. 

How do you adapt your business strategy?

Dentistry hasn’t changed that much in the last fifteen years. You can do the same dentistry you did ten years ago and still be doing great dentistry. Clinically things aren’t changing that fast. The shift in focus lies in the patient experience. In my opinion, at this stage new dental technologies are not going to exponentially improve your technical ability or clinical skills. Dentists have been doing these same procedures without the technology very well. Yes, technology can help us clinically to do slightly better here and there, but the focus is on how new technologies can improve the emotional experience for the patient.

How does Invisalign do this?

Invisalign is a pioneer when it comes to thinking about the consumer experience. Many years before any other company in dentistry, Invisalign was providing this service and I often wonder why it took everyone so long to catch up. That’s why the value and the trust of patients in Invisalign is huge compared to other dental companies.

It’s in Align’s DNA to focus not only on technological advances to be clinically more efficient, but in every new development to think of the business model; how to help the dentist by using an Align solution.

You’re not buying a scanner, you’re buying a business model. You’re not buying an aligner, you’re buying a patient experience. Align is a pioneer in this field.