Left: Rick (left) and Chuck Cohen, managing directors of Benco Dental. Above right: Benco founder Benjamin Cohen, center, circa 1930.
The full-service, family-owned dental distributor moves into its new home and expands its services nationwide.
– by Benjamin Lund, Editor, Dentaltown Magazine
Stroll into the lobby of CenterPoint, Benco
Dental's new home and hub of operations in
Northeastern Pennsylvania, and you're hit with three
impressions all at once: first, this company knows what
it is; second, it knows where it's going; and third, it will
never forget where it came from. If you stand at the
entrance and look straight ahead, you'll vie w the headquarters'
pristine and polished façade that might as well say,
"Welcome to the future." Look to your right and soak in the
dental distributor's immense and breathtakingly complete dental
operatory showroom – the largest of its kind in the nation. For
any dentist, it could trigger a salivary response. Look to your left
and you find a larger-than-life, floor-to-ceiling image from the
1930s of Benjamin Cohen, the company's founder, aiding a dentist
named Dr. Kniffen with a purchase at Benco's original Wilkes-
Barre, Pennsylvania, location. The immensity of this 80-year-old
image leaves no room for subtlety. Benco is proud of its heritage.
Now led by the second and third generations of Cohens – Chief Customer Advocate Larry, and his sons, Managing
Directors Chuck and Rick – Benco is unflinchingly focused on
maintaining the values and competencies it has forged over eight
decades, while embracing new standards and technologies necessary
to keep moving forward.
A Little History
In 1930, weary from peddling dental supplies from his 100-
pound suitcase for six years, Benjamin Cohen set up shop on the
fifth floor of the Miners Bank Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to tend to the supply needs of area dentists.
Back then, before the invention of the high-speed handpiece or
UPS, dentistry was simpler, and dental distributors were small,
over-the-counter storefronts. Ben's son, Larry, joined the family
business as a sales rep in 1957, after completing graduate school.
The company stayed focused on the coal-mining towns of
Eastern Pennsylvania until the 1970s. In 1972, Benco suffered
two crushing blows. First, Hurricane Agnes ravaged the area,
destroying most of downtown Wilkes-Barre and leaving Benco's
brand-new headquarters under eight feet of water. The entire
inventory was destroyed, and the company had no insurance to
cover the losses. At the time, Benco had 25 associates, including
Larry, and they faced a dire crisis: give up or press on. Thanks to
a committed group of associates (three of whom still work at
Benco) and a loan from the Small Business Administration, they
shoveled out the mud and reopened – only to be shocked a second
time with founder Ben's unexpected death later that year.
Despite these setbacks, Benco expanded throughout the
1970s and 80s, becoming one of the nation's first dental distributors
to begin doing business over a wide geography, and
introducing innovations like equipment specialists (sales representatives
who specialize in selling equipment), fax ordering by
customers (later replaced by Painless, the company's online
ordering system), and the BluChip Buying Club, dentistry's
original frequent buyer program.
When Chuck and Rick Cohen joined the family business in
the 1990s, they began implementing several programs to keep
the company focused on its mission of offering the widest variety
of supplies and equipment possible, while developing meaningful
partnerships with dentists and manufacturers to "deliver
success smile after smile." Benco's own success was made tangible
when, on January 4, 2010, the company consolidated three
separate Northeastern Pennsylvania locations into its new
CenterPoint headquarters – a 272,800-square-foot facility nestled
in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. For the first time in
more than a decade, all of Benco's headquarters associates are
stationed under the same roof. Benco's 1,100 associates now
serve more than 30,000 customers in 40 states.
Captivating Culture
Benco has a unique corporate culture, similar to the work
environment you might hear about at Google or Zappos. For
seven of the last eight years, the company has earned a place on
Pennsylvania's list of "Best Places to Work," ranking #43 in
2010. As the company expanded, culture remained extremely
important to the Cohens and the Benco team. In order to promote
a customer-focused culture in which every associate is
involved in driving change, the company implemented a continuous
improvement program called BCI (Benco Continuous
Improvement) modeled on the principles of "lean manufacturing."
A team of BCI associates leads events throughout the
organization that eliminate waste and improve the customer
experience – making Benco one of the first U.S. distributors in
any industry to fully deploy the "lean" model.
Also incorporated into the Benco culture: support for charitable
organizations and a relentless focus on the customer. The
Cohens donate five percent of the company's profits annually to
a family foundation that supports worthy causes like the United
Way, National Foundation of Dentistry for the Handicapped
and Head Start. And the Cohens insist that they, along with Benco's senior management team, co-travel with the sales associates
to meet with their dental customers personally. "Chuck
and Rick co-travel a lot and they require it of our senior management
and sales management teams," says Paul Jackson, vice
president of marketing.
"It's all about face-to-face," says Chuck. "Our reps might be
a little nervous about one of the owners of the company visiting
dental practices with them, but they're excited to show off what
they're doing. Everyone on our senior management team is
required to go with a sales rep at least one day a quarter, and
many of us get out at least one day a month. We all need to
know what our clients want and don't want. In this business it
is very easy to ignore the dentists. Here we make sure that never
happens." It's all part of an ongoing effort to export the company's
amazing culture throughout the organization – and co-traveling
is one of the ways Benco ensures a close relationship
between its sales reps, executive team and its dentist partners.
Left: Larry Cohen cuts the ribbon at the CenterPoint grand opening ceremony in April 2010. Right: Associates gather in Kitty's Kitchen,
Benco's on-site cafeteria.
Building CenterPoint was literally a team effort, with a
design process that solicited input from everyone at Benco.
Because CenterPoint was going to be the home for every Benco
associate, they all had a role in determining what amenities and
features the facility should have, as well as what it shouldn't.
Many BCI events were held to determine every single detail of
CenterPoint, including building layout and flow, department
placement and cubicle design. Decals of the company's core values
are adhered to the floor of the warehouse. One of the features
that came from BCI meetings was the addition of a health
clinic, where Benco associates can go to get flu shots, donate
blood and attend smoking cessation programs. Associates also
asked for more than a cafeteria or break room at CenterPoint – so Benco added Kitty's Kitchen, named after founder Benjamin
Cohen's wife, which offers an extensive and varied menu of hot
and cold entrees each day. (Author's Note: If you're visiting Benco
and the "Jigsy Wrap" is on the menu, order it.)
One of Benco's major goals was to build a headquarters with
as little environmental impact as possible, with a focus on reducing
waste, sewer and energy usage. As of this writing, Benco has
applied for the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Certification
status for CenterPoint, which it expects to obtain in early 2011.
The Pearl of CenterPoint
When purchases can be made via catalog or the Internet, it
might seem a little odd that Benco put so much effort into planning
and developing its state-of-the-art equipment showroom.
But it makes sense. "You wouldn't buy a car without test driving
it first," says Rick Cohen. "When dentists are updating their
offices or building a new one, they're buying gear that is going to
cost tens of thousands of dollars. It makes sense to see whether
the equipment you want to buy will work in your space. You're
buying stuff you have to live with for 15 to 20 years. It's different
than a car. At least you can get out of your car. You've got to
be in your office eight or more hours every day."
CenterPoint Experience Specialist Sue Evans recalls a time
when a dentist made the trip to CenterPoint with one goal in
mind – to test out the fit of his own IV armrest on the operatory
chair he was preparing to purchase. "The doctor had his heart set
on a particular style of chair," says Evans. "He was close to purchasing
a few of them for his office, but he wanted to make sure
the IV armrest would fit on the new chairs, so he flew to
CenterPoint to test the armrest on the chair in our showroom. It
turned out the armrest didn't fit on the chair at all." Evans says
the doctor tried the armrest on other chairs in the showroom
before making his decision to purchase another make and model.
Since the showroom's opening, dentists who visit have
been known to become weak at the knees from the overwhelming
variety of equipment and operatory designs. "We
believe in choices," says Rick Cohen. "If we meet with a manufacturer
and they tell us they want us to be the sole distributor
of their product, we tell them we don't want to do that. We
don't want to carry just that one brand of a specific item.
None of the lines we carry are exclusive to Benco, so it gives
our dentist partners a greater choice. Dentists don't have to
buy just one line of products from us; they can mix and
match. Maybe they like the A-Dec chairs but want the Pelton
& Crane lights. We can do that." Because Benco does not carry exclusive product lines, dentists who are renovating or
building a new office have literally millions of design options
from which to choose – from lights to chairs to even the color
of their operatory walls. In fact, Benco has interior designers
on staff to help dentists plan their operatories.
Far left: one of many equipment options on display at CenterPoint. Left: visitors can test drive various handpieces at CenterPoint.
Right: associates assemble for a Town Hall meeting with Rick. Far right: orders being filled on the smart conveyor.
Distribution & Moving West
The CenterPoint warehouse is home to more than two miles
of "smart conveyor" – which means when an order comes in, it
is printed on a piece of paper with a corresponding barcode. The
barcode is matched up with a tote that carries the same barcode
on its side. As the tote travels through the warehouse, the barcode
is scanned at multiple outposts to either make a stop to
pick up an item on the order or move through to the end.
Because the warehouse is largely automated, there are almost
zero errors (current rate: fewer than three errors per 10,000 lines
picked), but if there is ever a problem with an order, a dentist
can call 800-GO-BENCO and will speak with a customer service
rep. Most issues are resolved in one day (and any unresolved
issues are handled by Larry Cohen personally).
For now, the CenterPoint distribution center is the only
Benco warehouse that operates at such efficiency, but it hopes to
retrofit its other distribution centers with the same technology.
Of course CenterPoint is not Benco's only distribution center: it
already has centers in Jacksonville, Florida; Fort Wayne, Indiana;
and Dallas, Texas. And in a push to gain a foothold in all 50
states, Benco will open a new center in Reno, Nevada, in mid-
2011 to service the entire West Coast. "With its fifth distribution
center, Benco will be the first family-owned, full-service
dental company with a national footprint," says Jackson.
After 80 years, why push to "go national" now? Jackson says
it's because Benco Dental is a family business and worked slower
to make the right investments. "We're privately held," says
Jackson. "We would have
loved to make a move to
expand nationally 15 years
ago – and if we wanted to
go public we could have
done that, but that would
have meant making huge compromises. You can't please everyone,
and when you're trying to please the stock market, it's hard
to please dentists and have their interests at heart. So we chose
to grow at a measured pace. As we generated profits, we reinvested
them into expanding our offering and our footprint."
CenterPoint is a prime example of how the family has reinvested
in the business.
Another reason for Benco's national push revolves around
its relationships with its manufacturers. "We deliver value not
only to our dentist partners, but our manufacturer partners as
well," says Jackson. "If a manufacturer wants to give us a
product line, they want to know how their products will be
covered nationwide. We're not going national for the sake of
being bigger, we're going national to be better, especially for
our vendor partners."
Asked if there's any fear that Benco could get too big,
Chuck Cohen says Benco will continue to get bigger, but only
as long as it is the right thing for the company and the customer.
"It's about compromise," says Chuck. "In some ways
you can argue that we're already too big because we're not as
customer-intimate as we'd like to be. That's part of growing.
But we're able to offer products and services that smaller companies
can't offer, so it's a trade off. As we grow, our focus
remains on giving every customer, no matter where they are,
the same excellent experience."
The Benco Difference
There is definitely something different about Benco. Perhaps
it is because the company remains family-owned, and can make
uncompromised, long-term and well-researched strategic decisions
aimed only to have a positive impact on its dental partners
and its own associates. Perhaps it is the culture, meticulously
cultivated via Benco's BCI program and upheld by every associate
from the top down. Perhaps it is the non-exclusivity of its
product lines that allow the distributor to carry a wide variety of
products. Perhaps it's the personal touch and the no-pressure
service it provides to ensure that its dental partners not only get
what they want, but get what they need in order for both to succeed.
…Or perhaps it's a combination of everything.
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