May 17, 2021
Updated 1/5/2023
It's not about your system- It's about your people.
Change is hard.
People are resistant to change, even when it's a change for the better. But in order to successfully adopt new systems and processes and ensure optimal outcomes, your team needs to work collaboratively and be actively engaged in the process.
Getting your employees to buy-in and ensuring your entire team is on board prior to project execution helps you improve adoption rates and deliver a faster rate of return. When asking your employees to make a change, it's critical that you communicate why you're doing what you're doing and how your employees can directly benefit will help you avoid being paid lip service and secure the buy-in that leads to a fast ROI.
Method's driving principle is to provide employee-driven solutions, making for a better workday while supporting your dental business's longevity and growth through increased efficiencies, streamlined workflows, and improved profitability. Communicate this correctly, and you'll start your procurement journey off on the right foot, building the foundation for scaleable, profitable growth.
At Method, we understand that you're in the business of providing dental services, and your employees aren't dental procurement professionals.
In all fairness, standard procurement practices like inventory control or creating POs can seem like a lot to ask of your employees, especially considering they're likely already overwhelmed with their current responsibilities and the realities that come with the day-to-day running of a practice. Tasks must, therefore, bring value while being real-world adaptable, and scalable.
This is why Method takes a people-first approach. Designed for the industry by people in the industry, Method offers a user-friendly interface that leverages automation to make life easier for your employees while delivering improved profitability.
Streamlined workflows make light work of previously cumbersome tasks and empower employees to make smart insights-driven purchasing decisions, allowing you to better your margins and improve your cash flow.
Buy smart, buy fast, and ensure everyone has the supplies they need when they need them. In the end, everyone wins.
The journey to better procurement isn't just about increasing profits. Your employees also benefit when things run smoothly.
Sure, employees care about the long-term viability and well-being of the company, but they also want to know what is in it for them. By highlighting the win/win and communicating how they can benefit by utilizing a procurement platform, you can secure that critical employee buy-in and start your procurement journey off on the right foot.
Here are the key points you'll want to share:
Implementation of new systems and processes often fail due to the lack of employee buy-in and the setting of unreal expectations by management or third parties who lack the experience to understand the realities of day-to-day life in a dental practice.
Be realistic in your goals, understand and educate your employees on the payoffs, and be reasonable when setting expectations and setting your strategy.
And at all costs, avoid seeming like an out-of-touch employer who doesn't understand the pressures they are under and is just dumping more tasks on their already overburdened shoulders. Make sure to listen to and address their concerns, and you'll get your buy-in and start building a culture of change acceptance and improvements that safeguards the long-term viability of your DSO.
The reality is that most dental practices' purchasing processes are highly inefficient and ineffective. With little to no best practices set in place, dental offices often buy too little or too much and at a higher price than necessary.
Passive transactional procurement leaves employees in a reactive mode, ordering supplies upon shortages, reliant on online portals, emails, phone calls, and, worse yet, standard pricing with little, if any, price shopping or negotiating. As we explained in The Many Ways DSOs May be Leaking Profits: The Big Impacts of Small Costs, the mishandling of purchases can be extremely costly to your dental business. However, it also makes for a chaotic office, affects operating efficiencies, wastes employee time, and raises headaches and frustrations.
In today's challenging environment, those who want to remain viable must learn to do things better. In the end, the efforts put into a systematic streamlined process allow employees to focus on their core competencies and take care of the patients your business works so hard to earn.
The purchasing of supplies may seem like a simple task. But within your organization, you have hundreds of products, likely a myriad of services, and a seemingly unending list of suppliers that greatly complicate the seemingly simple. Shifting from transactional purchasing to strategic procurement with the efficient and effective management of product listings, quotes, purchases, receipt of goods, and invoices can be all but impossible without a single, central system designed to optimize time and spend.
Yes, there will be new tasks like issuing POs that perhaps may garner you an eye roll or some pushback. But an organized, efficient dental procurement process pays itself back in spades, creating a systematic process that provides you the information you need to procure smartly, save money, and secures your continuity of business while improving efficiencies.
In looking for better ways, many dental organizations implement inventory practices to the extreme, designing overly cumbersome processes that fail to be adopted long-term. Much like Pareto's 80/20 principle, the trick is finding the sweet spot, where time investment is minimized, frustrations are solved with user-friendly solutions, and the maximum value is extracted. It's a win for all when you start with the right mindset, maintain a clear focus on the problems most worth solving and find the simplest solutions.
People-first processes drive compliance, and with the right systems and workflows, a little work goes a long way. Contact Method Procurement to ease the burden on your dental employees.
