New boss for Nobel Biocare's Australian and New Zealand operations

Nobel Biocare's Australian and New Zealand operations have commenced the New Year under the governance of a new Regional Director. Mr Henrik Nedoh has taken over the role following the departure of Mike Covey in late 2011.

Formerly Head of Marketing for the Asia Pacific Region and based in Hong Kong, Mr Nedoh has relocated with his family to Sydney to oversee local operations.

"Heading up a region as important to Nobel Biocare as Australia and New Zealand is both a privilege and a challenge," Mr Nedoh said. "We have a very strong customer base here, a talented team representing us and well-established programs and facilities in place.

"We also have a lot of opportunity to work with and we have to consider how we can utilise our strengths to grow our position even further. In order to do that, I believe we need to be more innovative and address the broader needs of our customers over and above the supply of products on a transactional basis.

"We see a key goal for 2012 and beyond being to transition our relationships with our customers from a supplier of clinical products and training to an active partner in the future success of their practices.

"For many of our customers, choosing Nobel Biocare as a clinical partner is without question, so we have to then ask how can we do more to help practitioners not just be successful clinically, but also from a broader business perspective as well.

"Many companies heavily focus their resources on attracting new customers and whilst we have been very successful at doing that to date, today we equally want to focus on how do we make our good customers great.

"We want to work closely with customers to help them grow their patient base both directly and through referral. Whilst that sounds like a relatively lofty goal, we believe we have the skills and importantly the resources to be able to offer a range of initiatives that facilitate this."

Mr Nedoh said that areas where he believed the company could assist local practitioners included training and education, mentoring, building referrals, increasing patient communication and facilitating practice development.

"In the end, our success is solely derived from the success of our customers, so we have much to gain from this endeavour succeeding."

Originally from, Gothenburg, Sweden, Mr Nedoh came to Nobel Biocare in 2007 following a successful early career in diverse roles including sales, marketing and product management at the country's best known carmaker.

In the ensuing four years, he has similarly progressed through a unique apprenticeship in the world of implant dentistry that the former Volvo executive likens to a "crash course".

"I was hired by Heliana Canepa and Robert Gottlander for my product management knowledge with a view to bringing that experience to global functions within the company.

"I've been fortunate enough to have been given plenty of rope by the two incoming CEO's as well and have gained experience within the company working with the new product development teams on Snappy, Replace and NobelActive.

"I've also been privileged to sit on several of our advisory boards globally where we work intensively with clinicians to find the best solutions to current issues which ultimately guides us in product revisions and new developments."

Mr Nedoh moved to Hong Kong in 2009 to set-up the company's regional headquarters as a hub for the Asia Pacific. As Head of Marketing, he worked closely with Nobel Biocare subsidiaries in Australia, New Zealand and Japan and in addition to that, he also directly looked after distributors in Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore.

"I was looking for my next role in the company when fate stepped in and this opportunity arose," Mr Nedoh said. "I'm looking forward to working directly with our sales and product management team in Australia and New Zealand to establish much closer ties with our customers.

"We will start introducing initiatives in coming months to partner more closely with our clinicians to, amongst other things, create greater value for patients and improve their quality of life.

"As a company, we need to revisit our strong heritage and go back to the principles that Professor Branemark holds so dearly and how the solutions we develop can significantly improve the lives of patients, particularly the elderly, the edentulous and the victims of trauma.

"Nobel Biocare continually invests in research, development and technology to stay at the forefront of superior patient care and I believe we have the best products and we have very unique solutions.

"The vision is simple. State-of-the-art solutions in partnership with our customers to deliver greater value and quality of life to patients."