Managing Change Enquiry and Action

Smile Solutions is not your ordinary dental practice. The award winning business was launched in 1993 by a Melbourne dentist, Dr Kia Pajoushesh, with just eight clients. As a young dentist starting out, he had spent nearly $3000 on a single dental chair and could not afford to pay his dental nurse for hours beyond lunchtime, at which point he would send her home. By 2016, Smile Solutions had undergone such dramatic growth and change that it had transformed into a business with net revenues that exceeded $18 million. It had more than 80 000 clients who were served by more than 50 specialists, dentists and hygienists. Supporting those registered dental professionals and clients were a further 50 or so ancillary members, including management, reception and nursing staff. Together they had achieved average annual growth in excess of 25 per cent. How did one dental practice transform itself into one of the most awarded medium-sized businesses in Australia? Perhaps even more remarkably, how did it maintain service excellence whilst achieving such high levels of growth? Clearly, Kia Pajoushesh is not your ordinary dentist.

To understand the remarkable nature of the Smile Solutions business, it helps to examine the typical way dentistry is practised in Australia. The majority of dentists are employed in local, private practices of dentists working in partnership, or they are sole practitioners supported by locums. These general practices are often named after their location – either suburb or street. Growth-oriented medium-sized dental practices typically locate themselves in larger suburbs or cities to draw on a larger client base. In Melbourne, the larger and more elite practices are located on Collins Street.

Supporting the generalist dentistry practice model are the dental specialist practices, to which any broader or more complex dental issues are referred. These specialists include orthodontists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons and others. Dental specialists rely on building and maintaining multiple relationships with general practices and with other specialists to provide their steady stream of clients. This general practitioner/ specialist model is the cornerstone of advanced medical and dental health care systems around the world.