Transcription
Nuvia Smiles used Zoho to simplify
operations and stay flexible as it's
scaled to 40 plus locations. We are
talking with Carl Johnson, Nuvia's chief
nerd for practical advice that you can
use now. Nuvia Smiles specializes in
dental implant surgery. We have over 40
locations across the country. And our
specialty is having a 24-hour turnaround
from surgery to implant, which creates a
much better experience for the patient.
What are you doing with Zoho?
One of our primary uses is Zoho
Analytics, where we centralize a
majority of our data. Uh, and that's
proven to be one of our biggest wins
from Zoho. We are using some Zo CRM
modules and processes. We have some
things we're building in creator. We're
using Zoho projects for various things
across departments. I can't even count
how many Zoho products we're actually
using.
Carl, how did Zoho help you simplify
your processes?
They provided a nice central place for
us with a lot of different types of
functionality. We found three different
categories of business value. Uh, one
right out of the gate was business
intelligence. The fact that we could
start centralizing our data gave us a
lot more insight into what was happening
in our business processes and gave the
executives and management a lot more
power to make better decisions about
what to do next.
So, Nuvia started of course as a small
company. It now has 40 locations and
it's growing. Take us on that journey.
That journey actually started more
administratively than it did from a tech
or a dev perspective. the management or
the upper executives want more visual
elements that really help them make
decisions like dashboards and and
business intelligence and things like
that. Obviously, when you get into those
kinds of conversations, you can't get
data unless you have good applications
that give you the data. And so, it
turned into a broader conversation of is
there something out there that could
sort of be a catchall where we could
start centralizing all of our processes
and operations. So it's it's been a
great gap filler if you will for us as
well as a great business intelligence
tool and then we're using it in quite a
few other ways as well.
You started with over 80 applications
every location and every department in
the company was basically just choosing
applications as on an asneeded basis to
to do the things that they needed to do.
lots of different spreadsheets. Um,
whatever approach they could find, they
would just pick it and use it because
there was no centrality to any of those
concepts. And so that's you can see how
you could quickly get to over 80
applications. How did all of this
complexity affect the business
operations?
There's two priorities ultimately when
it comes to our applications and use of
software. The executive side or upper
management side is really just about the
data itself. it became evident really
rapidly that just controlling the data
was kind of our number one priority.
Let's find out how to control the data.
And of course, one of the biggest wins
out of Zoho was just using the analytics
tool because that gave us a place to
start centralizing data and realizing
what we actually don't know in the
process. And so you have that side of it
and then the other side of it is
actually what's producing the data. So
what applications are getting used? are
these applications we can get the data
from? Is it friendly to the end user?
And from those two worlds is where that
complexity comes from. Uh and they're
really two different conversations to
have at the end of the day, which I
think is where a dev or an IT team can
really come into play and have have some
real strength and power in that
conversation as long as that's what um
their mission is is to kind of bring
those two worlds together. That aspect
of collaboration between the IT side and
the business side is so important
because of course business leaders know
what they need from uh an operations
perspective but they don't necessarily
understand all the ins and outs of the
technology and the IT folks don't know
what's in the heads of the business
leaders. So, how did you bring people
together to make this collaboration
work?
We discovered quickly that one of the
missing gaps between the IT team and the
executives or the business operators was
that collaboration was that
understanding of the two two different
business models, if you will. Here you
have all these locations that are
successfully doing business and bringing
smiles to patients lives and they're
seeing the success and the reward and
the outcomes. And then here comes along
this IT team and what is it that we're
supposed to bring to the table? And
often times an IT team can be seen as a
detriment or slowing us down a little
bit. So having that conversation between
those two sides, if you will, becomes an
an interesting challenge and I think
often times companies miss out on some
of the connecting tissue between those
two things. uh in the sprint or agile
world that I come from, we would call
that a product owner or someone that's
responsible for having a conversation
between the two sides and taking the
business knowledge and interpreting it
into IT or developer knowledge so that
it can be developed in effective and
efficient way. And often times a role
like a product owner is not even
considered real. It's something
overlooked quite a bit. And in our
company that that was not a role that
was filled and so we sort of had to
naturally start filling it. We chose an
approach called the customer journey
approach or the or the user journey
approach which is more committee driven
than it is an individual or a position
where we can bring people from various
departments to talk with uh different
people on the IT team so that we both
come to the same understanding. So
that's how we've kind of dealt with some
of those collaborative complexities
uh that way by using more committee-
based knowledge and collaboration. You
use the term journey and that kind of
collaboration for most organizations
definitely is a process of getting
there.
Absolutely. You have to be consistent
with quite a few things and there are
journey frameworks out there in the CX
world um that you can read up on. A lot
of them kind of mirror the actual agile
uh processes or frameworks where you
actually have meetings that you schedule
every so often, every two weeks or one
week or whatever your cycle is on. And
so following a framework I think is very
productive and being consistent with it
and making sure that everyone
understands they're on the same team. So
often a dev team and a department can
think they're on different teams or they
can feel like they're sort of enemies to
one another. one's bogging down the
other because they don't understand each
other. So, I think overcoming that
concern is huge in the collaborative
world between different departments.
Understanding that we're all on the same
team with the same goal and the same
mission, and that's to bring smiles to
people's faces. Once you can overcome
those kinds of concerns, it's pretty
amazing how productive a meeting or a
collaboration can be and how actually
enjoyable it can be, frankly. And the
bigger the company gets, the more time I
think you do have to spend on
relationships and understanding one
another and I guess the emotional
intelligence of that process. Uh, and so
the bigger the company gets, I think the
harder it is to keep those connecting
tissues tight and and close together.
Parl earlier you described data as being
the core. Can you elaborate on the role
and importance of data in driving this
transformation? I think we fell back to
data at the end of the day because that
is really sort of the doctrine by which
companies run. I think it's really easy
for people in a bubble like CEOs or
administrators or like just an IT guy or
dev guy to be in a bubble and see things
like, "Oh, look how sexy that interface
is and think that the sexiness of the
interface is what makes a great product,
right?" And so you can get a lot of
confusion about what is important. And
of course, a user interface is always
really important, but is not really the
most important thing, right? you can get
by with a less sexy interface as long as
the data it's producing is valuable to
you. So we learned quickly that those
priorities needed to become very
secondary to the idea that data is our
first priority regardless of how
goodlooking the interface is or any of
the window dressing about how we get it.
as long as it's easy as easy as possible
for the user to give it to us and more
importantly easy and interpretable to
give back to the executives in a
digestible way. So that data is really a
lot more important than any other
consideration at the end of the day.
So the data is not just about producing
pretty reports but actually serving to
move a business operations forward.
Correct. And it's so easy to get caught
in the fray of the of understanding that
the fray of if it doesn't look pretty,
is it accurate? You know, and I guess to
some degree trust is a big issue with
that. Trusting the data. I guess a UI
comes in a little bit because it
provides a trust level to data, but you
can have the best UI on the planet and
still have really crappy data. So for
us, we would we focus a lot more on data
integrity now than anything else. and
then we'll try and make it as pretty as
we can after the fact.
Earlier you described this large
application sprawl. Tell us about that
and how you got your arms around it and
simplified. There's so many
conversations surrounding all those
applications, why they chose them, what
data they were using them for, what
process and what data lives behind it.
And to get through all those
conversations is sort of step one. And
then and then the calculus of all that
was what is really the most important
because there were conversations about
interfaces and does it run on a mobile
phone etc etc. And the calculus of all
that was the data is what's important
and knowing that it really simplifies
our perspective on how we migrate and
how we look at applications. So our
first question is can we get the data
right? So that changes the conversation
entirely as to well we need to get rid
of this app. Well that's pretty
aggressive like can we get the data from
the app because maybe we can live with
that for a little while before we get
rid of the app. So it really does change
the whole conversation and our
priorities and it allows us to be a a
little more agile with all the
applications that are being used. And if
if we can't get the data or the data is
not accurate or providing us with data
integrity, then we need to look at
something more aggressive or
centralizing it into something like
Zoho. That's interesting. So the data
became your reference point for making
technology decisions about what to keep,
where to change. And it sounds like this
was a very measured approach again based
on the data as the reference.
We've kind of ended up there. I mean
it's still an experiment if you will,
but it is simplifying our thought
process and it seems to make just common
sense. It's intuitively makes more sense
because the conversations were really
convoluted and hard to understand how to
prioritize before that. And so now that
we've settled in on this one point of
reference for an application, it just
makes all of our conversations that much
better and we're not shaking other
departments to the core by telling them
we're stripping everything they're using
tomorrow, right? And so there's a lot
less fear in it, a lot more trust in the
process and and a lot of departments
understand that now that we can't get
the data, we have to have a more
aggressive conversation about replacing
it. and they're okay with that because
we've walked through the process from
that perspective.
And then ultimately you moved from this
broad application sprawl onto Zoho as a
unified platform.
We did have some uh really good
successes with CRM. We do use uh Zoho
projects and other tools. Uh we had
success with click and some other
communication tools that are in there.
And again, when we made data the
priority, we learned that we don't
necessarily need to scrap someone's
Google sheet or we don't necessarily
need to scrap a certain application um
just because we now have a central tool
to use because that central tool can
sometimes make it more complicated, not
less, and make the data harder to
understand or aggregate. Um, and so
we've we've learned how to scale Zoho at
a proper pace, I guess, is the best way
to put it. Can you describe how you went
about centralizing the processes and the
data? With a company like ours that was
growing so fast there, no one really had
their arms around data and so we've
really had to kind of chunk that out and
take one big piece at a time. So we have
other CRM data. We have other
applications data. And that did turn
into us deciding that it was going to be
really important to set up what we call
middleware, which is just some servers
in the cloud where we can set up some
stacks that will do certain things, hit
APIs, get data, aggregate data, push
data, have web hooks push data to us,
right? Just a a nice space where we
could catch anything that Zoho couldn't
get or that other applications couldn't
get for us. uh and we learned early on
that that was absolutely necessary and
we continued to build on that stack as
well. So that's an ongoing process but
that's kind of where we ended up. So we
ended up with Zoho a middleware stack
and then all of our other apps where we
can share data in between them and the
more we get control over that data the
better we can make a decision about
where we put the next upgrade or build
out the next application that we're
going to use. So it's been really
satisfying process to help everybody
come together and say you know what data
is the most important thing here and if
everybody agrees on that now the
application conversation is much
different for everyone involved and not
just us against them again like we
talked about as you were undergoing this
simplification process. How did you
maintain compliance and data integrity?
And of course, you're a healthcare
company, so that's very crucial to you.
We did need to make sure that Zoho was
compliant with all of its data
requirements and rules, uh, which they
have all those security policies in
place for us. The middleware, we've
obviously made made sure that's
protected with security and everything
else. It has all the chief nerd stuff to
go with it, if you will. So, you started
with over 80 applications. How many do
you use now? We don't keep a count and
we don't need to count because
everything we're doing right now is just
a simpler process for us.
So life is just easier.
Yeah.
How important is the platform aspect of
Zoho to this simplification process?
The Zoho platform approach has been more
beneficial administratively
more so than technically. So
administratively the fact that Zoho is
has a very low cost point. They have a
really nice program that gets all users
access to all products so that you can
kind of pick and choose or figure that
out as you go. Administratively, it
makes that really nice and cost
justifiable to live in that platform so
that you can be more agile with it. So I
think um the platform perspective
because they made it so flexible
administratively has been very nice. How
did Zoho's platform flexibility enable
you to start in one location and then
scale?
Zoho really gave us the ability to to
kind of carve out a process, build it in
Zoho and then train the staff at a
single location on that process and then
we were able to observe that and refine
it and once it's working well, we were
able to roll that out to other
locations. So that worked really well
for us. How did Zoho give you the
confidence to rely on their platform to
such a large extent?
Confidence for us was a building
process. You really don't gain
confidence until you use it. And so we
really just needed to jump in uh dip our
feet in it, get the data in business
analytics, try building a few things in
CRM and and our confidence grew from
use. And how about the aspect of being
able to share data among the
applications sitting on that platform?
That's one of our top three
considerations. Can we build it in Zoho
is that because it will be central to
all of our users right out of the gate
and and can we build it better than
what's already being used. And so that
becomes an easier conversation to have
because Zoho has an easy building
platform especially when you're
considering things like CRM. uh we have
used creator for a couple of different
applications that gets a little more
complicated but because that's there and
available and it's not like we're paying
a bunch of extra money to add a new
process to it. It's just built in now
it's just a common part of our
conversation. Should we do it in Zoho?
Do we need some middleware for it or is
the current application we're using
sufficient for now? It gives you that
flexibility to make choices as you go
rather than one huge project.
That's right. Especially as a
consideration against custombuilt
applications and things that would be
much bigger and more expensive to build.
For sure.
What benefits have you seen by
undertaking this simplification process?
The company's successful. We're bringing
more smiles to faces of patients. uh and
that our end users are loving the
products.
Sounds to me like you're describing
three benefits. There are hard financial
savings,
there is
employee happiness, if we can put it
that way,
and better customer experience.
Yeah, that's a great way to put it.
Change is always hard. How did you
manage expectations and gain buyin among
employees at the company?
The more transparent you are, the more
honest you are, the more you eat crow
when you make a mistake and can take the
blame. It keeps those conversations more
real and truthful and transparent. And I
think the more the better your
collaborations, I think the better the
entire experience is for everybody in
that process. Now you've been through
it. What advice do you have for other
business and technology leaders who are
facing this kind of journey?
Good collaboration, making sure that you
have good connecting tissues, I like to
call it, between um business departments
and an IT or developer department. And
consider making data the first priority.
Beyond that, I would say have fun and
collaborate a lot.
Carl Johnson, chief nerd at Nuvia
Smiles. Parl, thank you so much for
taking time to chat with us. Yeah, it's
been fun.
[Music]