Envisage Dental: 10 years on, we speak to acquisitions director Jon Toh about how this group has quietly built a formidable reputation.
Founders Dr Sandy Dau and Harry Gill (pictured) started the company in 2014 with a focus on high quality private clinics. After 10 years they have over 1,000 colleagues across the country and growing.
Envisage Dental is a very quiet brand, tell us more about the history and how it started
Envisage was the brainchild of Harry Gill and Dr Sandy Dau, who are a husband-and-wife team, back in 2014. They have always been very inward facing with 100% of their energy going into creating one of the best healthcare companies in the world. For this reason, they are relatively lowkey within the industry. They spend all their time with their teams and clinics.
Over the last 10 years they have quietly built a dental group of sheer excellence. This is backed up by a 97% engagement score from the 1,000 plus colleagues across the group. They are also the first nationwide dental group to achieve B Corp Certification.
Our founders are here for the long term too, and you can really feel that passion and care across everything they do. Good enough just isn’t enough at Envisage. We really believe in creating a company of the future where clinics can feel empowered, supported and understood in a group setting. This is rare in our industry.
With Sandy being clinically-led it means that the needs of our practices are represented at every level across our teams. High quality patient care is never sacrificed for extra profits or a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model. Harry is our visionary and keeps the entire company pointing to our north star. We have two formidable (and very humble) founders in charge and we are lucky to have them at Envisage.
With so many groups out there, what is unique about Envisage?
From day one the founders were clear on operating within the private space only. They had a deep understanding of private dentistry. This has meant they are alive to the fact that each clinic is highly local, unique and has a powerful DNA that needs nurturing and supporting.
Our culture means we have a community of like-minded principals and teams – everyone feels a sense of belonging. We know what administrative burdens to take away from practices and what support is needed to help high performing teams thrive.
What’s more impressive is that as the group has grown, this focus has remained, and this philosophy is engrained within us no matter how big we may become in the future.
What drives the culture and team at Envisage Dental?
We are all aligned to our purpose of using business as a force for good as well as our mission to create one of the best healthcare companies in the world. This means at the heart of everything we do are our colleagues and the high quality care we deliver to our patients.
Our broad mission also means we look at other sectors within healthcare to bring the best talent and ideas together. Our clinics are supported as they want to be supported. Without the red tape and bureaucracy, but with real collaborative conversations. We really want to set the benchmark for how a dental group should operate in today’s landscape – we believe we are carving out a blueprint for how group dentistry should operate.
What kind of clinics join Envisage Dental?
We really believe in buying high quality clinics as our starting block. This also means the local brand and way of doing things is very important to sellers, and us. Our strict criteria is why our growth over the last 10 years has been much slower than the other groups, but also why our engagement with teams is super high. We have real alignment.
Our clinics are mainly private (some have very small NHS contracts). They have four plus chairs along with a large team to deliver the best patient care possible. The relationship with the principal is also very important to both us and the seller. We see this as a partnership, so must be fully aligned on how we will run the clinic together post-sale.
Envisage really focus on having like-minded clinics join the group with a strict criteria of quality. Clinics joining enjoy the benefits of having tailored support from a team of experts underpinned by a localised and empowered approach where clinics retain their identity in full as well as their unique DNA.
What does life look like when clinics join Envisage?
The journey starts in due diligence and us getting to really know each other. That way, we become aligned in how we will move forward. Post-completion we then take away all the administrative headaches so the team can focus more on patient care. We then sit down with the principal to come up with the three-to-five-year plan to evolve the clinic to the next level, harnessing all their strengths and supporting in their weaknesses. It’s highly collaborative and very local – our clinics remain empowered while we offer all the support they need.
If we spoke to principals in the group, what would they say?
The overwhelming feedback we receive is that what we say we do, and that’s important to us. We really spend time getting to know the clinics in due diligence and the first 90 days of joining. We also explain our philosophy in detail.
Everyone is aligned and this is underpinned by a team of support experts who just ‘get it’. They understand private dentistry as deeply as our principals do, so the conversations are always meaningful and on point.
Like what you hear? Join us in redefining group dentistry
Envisage Dental is an award-winning group and actively seeking out other high-quality clinics that align to our values and mission. As one of UK’s fastest growing privately focused dental groups, we would love to hear from you if you feel you have a high-quality clinic that needs the right home for its future success. Speak to Jon Toh at [email protected] for a confidential and friendly conversation with no obligation.
Envisage Dental will be featured in a series of articles across 2024, you can find out more at www.envisage-dental.co.uk/fmc-tell-me-more.
