[00:00:00] Do you think that the practice owners that you talk to understand where they're heading? If you're not leveraging AI, you should be so scared, you should be so terrified, you should be worried. You've had hundreds of conversations with practice owners at a very specific point. You're going to have competitors out there that have dental practices that are using the latest technology and leveraging it. Cloud PMS or AI integration, which do most UK practices understand less well right now?

[00:00:27] This is the TechDental Podcast, the strategic intelligence hub for leaders shaping the dental industry. We break down how AI, data and operating discipline drive performance and scale. I'm Dr. Randeep, let's dive in. My guest today is Pradeep Bara.

[00:00:52] Pradeep is a software consultant at Henry Sign One, specializing in the dental software migration space. He's had hundreds of direct conversations with UK practice owners at the exact point of deciding whether to move from legacy systems to cloud native infrastructure. That makes him one of the most data rich observers of how the dental profession actually thinks about technology change. Pradeep, welcome to TechDental. Thanks for having me. Really excited.

[00:01:19] I want to start with your background because most people who end up doing what you do come through dentistry or through traditional dental software sales. Tell me about your journey into this space as I think it's quite unique. I started off in the fashion industry as a content creator, as a blogger. I was the first time I've been to seek fashion blogger in the world and I found a lot of success in that. I was doing that for a number of years, but I quickly lost the passion for it. And I was still really young because I just came out of uni.

[00:01:47] So still was kind of figuring out what I wanted to do in my life. And then I fell into the digital marketing side and social media marketing side. So doing that for other companies and brands and building them up. I've worked with big brands like Pepsi, Dynx, H&M. Still didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought I could have or should have. And then I got into the business development side. And that's where I've really started to find my feet and my groove. And then it's developed into more of a consultative role. How I got into cloud was actually through video games.

[00:02:16] I'm a video game enthusiast and cloud technology is everywhere. We don't really think about it, but it's everywhere. And for me, when it really hit me in the face, the power of cloud was when I could stream video games to my TV. And it was mind-blowing that before I had to buy a physical CD or download about 100 gigs worth of data to play this game on my console. But now I don't even need a console. I just need anything that has a browser and a decent internet connection.

[00:02:46] And I can play a PC graphics card style in the cloud. It was so mind-boggling for me that I ended up just getting into this deep rabbit hole of learning about cloud. And then I ended up getting cloud certified, became a cloud consultant. And then fast forward, that's where I came across this opportunity at Henry Shine to help their customers using their legacy software that's on site. And helping them understand the importance of cloud and the power of cloud.

[00:03:16] And that's essentially how I got here. So the short story is that I disappointed my parents by being in fashion. But now I can turn back and say I work in the dental industry. So now they can be a little bit proud of me. I love that career arc. And talk to me a little bit about the technical foundation, that cloud architecture knowledge, the understanding of how data moves between systems. Does that actually change the nature of the conversation that you have with the practice owner?

[00:03:41] I don't really need to get too technical to my clients, customers when I speak to them about the infrastructure of cloud technology. But having that understanding really helps because I get to, in my own way, explain in a really simple way the power of it and how it's going to benefit them in an actual tangible way. They will see the results as opposed to just giving a bunch of technical jargon. So, yeah, it definitely does help.

[00:04:06] You've come from a background that involves digital platforms and you understand how technology disrupts established industries. I'm curious whether that lens, you know, having watched the platform economy restructure around new technology, gives you a different way of reading what's happening in dental right now. Absolutely. I can see that there is a massive storm coming and it's going to completely disrupt the dental industry in ways that none of us are going to anticipate or expect.

[00:04:32] Even, in fact, the ones that are the tech enthusiasts like myself and yourself, it's the ones that have actually had the ears to the ground that really appreciate that. But the change that's about to come is not just going to shift and change the dental industry, but the whole world, humanity. So naturally, the dental industry is going to look different to how it does right now. What was the version of the dental technology market you found and how has it changed since you arrived?

[00:04:58] So when I joined, it was mainly just, you know, you've got your on-premise, you've got your cloud and AI was still just a thing that was up and coming. And there's some really cool use cases for it. But now I can see that, especially with dentally, the way that I see dentally is not as a cloud software. It's actually an AI software.

[00:05:17] And we're going to see further along in the next couple of years where we won't really position ourselves as cloud because what's concerning for me is when people think that cloud is new and innovative, but it's not. Cloud's been here for ages. It's been here for 10, 15 years. Netflix disrupted blockbusters. And, you know, that happened years ago. Amazon, it makes all of its money, not from its online stores, but from its cloud services.

[00:05:45] We've already established ourselves as a cloud software. Now the next step is AI. If you've got a practice owner who's on the fence about migration, do they need a better technical explanation or do they need a reason to trust that the disruption to their business is going to be worth it? Because as you know, migrating from legacy to cloud does have a certain disruption. How do you broach that subject with a busy practice owner who's concerned that it's going to disrupt their workflows and they're going to have to cancel patients?

[00:06:14] Honestly, minimal disruption, especially if you go from a software like Xact to dentally, especially because it's all under one company. The data never leaves the organization. It just goes from one part of the team to another part of the team. And then we sense check it. We make sure that your data is converted properly. So because we're doing a lot of that in the background, there is minimal disruption. Obviously, the day they go live, they'll be closed down for maybe a couple of hours in the morning, if that. And that's it. And all of these things are planned months in advance. I'll give you an example.

[00:06:43] At the moment, we're pretty much fully booked for the next eight weeks anyway. So if a customer wanted to join up today, they wouldn't go live for the next eight weeks. And that gives us and them a lot of time to prepare. And it gives our customer enough time to make sure that their diary is free and they're not getting booked. And it gives us enough time to make sure they're getting the best experience and making sure that their data is converted correctly. And it's all done securely as well.

[00:07:06] You've had hundreds of conversations with practice owners at a very specific point of deciding whether to migrate from their legacy systems to cloud-based systems. So that's quite a remarkable real-world data set. It's not really what people say in surveys about technology. It's what they actually say when the decision is in front of them. What are the main objections you hear most often? And which ones do you find least convincing when you actually examine it?

[00:07:31] I think, understandably, the most common objection or most common concern is that is change. Some of these practice managers, as an example, have used it exactly for 20, 30 years. So they're reluctant of change. They feel like if it's not broken, then don't try to fix it. But what they don't understand is being complacent is not going to get you anywhere in life generally. I know it sounds like a really deep thing to say, but if you're a practice owner or you're most likely will be a dentist.

[00:07:59] I know there's some practice owners that aren't dentists, but they had to study hard to become a dentist. And then they're reluctant of change because they're scared to use a new software. And I would say if you're capable of being a dentist or if you're capable of running a dental practice, if you're capable of being a receptionist or a practice manager, trust me, you're more than capable to adapt to this change. Because what people don't realize is Xact, it's an amazing software. It's a great software for its time.

[00:08:27] That time has passed now and it still works, but you can see its age. Whereas Dentally was built from the ground up to be easy to use. 30 years ago when they were building software, making software, like the software coders didn't really know much about making things intuitive or about, you know, user behavior, user experience. They were just trying to just build software. Whereas now we've got 30 years of all this data and experience as humanity.

[00:08:54] And now when we build software, we make sure that it's easy to use. It's intuitive. It looks good. It feels good. So that's why I'm not convinced because they've shown their capability that they can do amazing things because they're dentists, they're receptionists, they're managed practices. So when they say they don't think they can use an easy software, it's just not convincing for me at all. If it's not broken, don't try and fix it. Blockbuster had that same attitude. And now look where they are. Netflix has come and just changed the industry.

[00:09:23] So you're going to have competitors out there that have dental practices that are using the latest technology and leveraging it. That's what you're competing against. And they're using tools like AI. If you're not even using cloud software, if you're not on cloud software today, you're already five, 10 years behind. And then you have practices that use cloud software and then leverage the AI features in those softwares. If you're not doing that, you're not going to stand a chance against the practices that do that.

[00:09:51] Talk to me a little bit about the data security, NHS governance, workflow continuity, and GDPR. How do you address that? And how do you tell apart those objections from people just not being sure about whether they're capable of shifting software? We sometimes, it's not really a big objection because it's really easy to handle that, which is Henry Schein, it's a massive company. And the reason why some of the features that we roll out take a little bit longer than maybe

[00:10:20] our competitors might roll it out is because we do our due diligence. We make sure that we are compliant and we will double, triple check. The Henry Schein wider company is based in America and you can buy the stock, it's publicly traded. So a company that, you know, we're an offshoot, Henry Schein one, we make sure we cover our customers back. We want to make sure that their data is secure. And cloud technology actually is the most secure way to go. It's the best way to secure your data.

[00:10:51] I'm a bit of a Harry Potter fan. And I always say to my customer, it is as secure as Gringotts Bank. Nothing is going to go through that because we've partnered with AWS, with Amazon Web Services. We've got data centers all across the world. So yeah, your data is secure. And again, from a compliance perspective, whenever we roll things out, we do it properly. I'll give you an example. We have an AI clinical notes feature where you dictate and it transcribes. You can use templates. It saves a bunch of time.

[00:11:16] We rolled it out a little bit later than maybe other companies could have rolled theirs out. But that's because our one is actually not only medically term trained, but it's medically licensed. It's compliant. And because it's fully baked into the software, from a GDPR perspective, your data is not going to get compromised. And the practices that decide not to move on cloud, what does that practice look like typically in, say, three years down the road? They're still on something like Exact where it's stored locally. I would argue they're still behind with the times.

[00:11:45] So in three years time from now, looking at where Dentally was last year with its AI capabilities, looking at where it is this year and what we're coming out with next year, in the next two, three years, the gap is only widening at an exponential rate. So I would say in two years time, two, three years time, if they're not on Dentally, then the gap's going to be so wide that I just don't know how they're going to keep up. Honestly, I'm really excited with some of the AI features that we're coming up with this

[00:12:13] year. And generally as a tech enthusiast, seeing how far AI has gone in the last couple of years, I was actually one of the first users that used ChatGPT before it even hit a million users. And I remember how bad it actually was. It's had a lot of potential. And even going from the image generation, the video generation content to how it was back then to how it is now, it is just mind boggling. But to answer your question, in three years time, where do I see them? I see them in a really scary place.

[00:12:41] Matt Dentists, they love their tech, but they're not necessarily software literate in terms of cloud computing. Do you think that the practice owners that you talk to, do you think they really understand when they make a decision to stick where they are, where they're heading? They obviously don't understand. If they're staying where they are, I don't think they understand. They're looking too, maybe too short term and not long term enough. The only kind of practice owners or practice that I would say are okay sticking with the exact

[00:13:09] is if the practice owner is going to close the practice in like two, three years and that's it. And they're happy with their money that they've made and they don't want to change a single thing. Then I would say fair play. But if you're looking to sell the practice or pass it down, they're going to have to be on cloud. If they sell an exact and they're trying to sell it, it's not really an easy sell. Whereas if it's on dentally already set up, it's going to be a lot easier to sell. Valuation probably going to go up, things like that. Like I said, there's only one type of customer and I've come across those customers. I have, there are a couple of them, not many, but there are a couple that

[00:13:39] they're just going to retire, shut up shop, sail off to the sunset. They made their money and that's fine because they had their time. They're the kind of practice owners that have been around for the last 30 years and they were using exact when that was the new and upcoming thing. They rode that wave and now dentally is for, for now and the next sort of 30 years. What's the single most common technical misunderstanding practice owners have about cloud migration and what it actually involves? Dentists, we think

[00:14:06] from a clinical point of view, we're obviously biased towards our clinical workflows and we don't want patients to suffer. So there's a narrative out there that if you have to migrate from a legacy system to a cloud system, it involves in a shutting up shop for some time. Can you just address that for our listeners? What is the actual process and is it as disruptive as people are assuming? Disruption is absolutely minimal, massive, massive misunderstanding, which I can understand the concern. But I think the best way for me to explain it is kind of give

[00:14:34] you an example of how it would typically look for a customer going from exact to dentally. Let's just say today they decided to sign the dotted line and they wanted to join team dentally. They wouldn't go live for about eight weeks anyway, because we're fully booked and we don't want to compromise the customer experience by speeding things up and rushing things. That gives them a good couple of months to get the training in place. So they'll get access to a sandbox where they can use the software themselves, play around with it. We actually make a copy of the data and

[00:15:04] put it on from exact to dentally. So it actually has the customer data on there. So it feels real when they're playing around with the software. It feels basically like it's live, but it's not because it has your patient data on there. Break it, play around with it, have fun with it. Then they get access to a bunch of other training material, online resources, online dropping sessions, and then they get the actual training session as well, which is booked weeks, sometimes months in advance. If you wanted to go live in three, four months time from now,

[00:15:31] you can absolutely do that. No problem. So because these are planned weeks or months in advance, there's going to be no commercial operational impact on your business unless you're an extremely, extremely busy practice and you're already fully packed up for the next six months. But we can accommodate, we can work around that. And then again, the morning you go live, typically you'd be closed just for a couple of hours when we flip you across. So absolutely minimal, minimal disruption to the practice.

[00:15:56] The migration narrative, it assumes that moving to cloud is clearly the right commercial decision and that resistance is either risk aversion or being under-informed. But isn't there a legitimate argument that for a busy practice running on thin margins with deeply embedded legacy workflows and NHS contract compliance obligations? The cost and disruption of migration genuinely outweighs the marginal near-term benefit. Not every practice needs the AI capability roadmap that cloud unlocks.

[00:16:26] Do you think that resistance is actually rational or do you have a different perspective? I've got a different perspective. I think the difference between successful practices and unsuccessful practices is very simple. It's just their perspective on their tools. So they've got a bunch of tools at their disposal when they're working with their patients. But one tool that they overlook is their software, their practice management system. If they're looking at it as a cost and not as an investment and not as a tool,

[00:16:56] then it's going to be very difficult with that attitude to be successful. And then those margins, they're always going to have a big impact and they're always going to kind of dictate how the practice is being run and the trajectory of the practice as well. Whereas if they look at the software as a tool that they can leverage and though they look at those margins and instead of thinking about this is a cost and it's costing me £300 a month and you know, how am I going to afford this or how is it going to run? The successful practices will look at this

[00:17:26] tool and say, cost £300 a month. How am I going to leverage this? So it makes me an extra £5,000 a month. Well, am I going to leverage this? So it makes me an extra 50 appointments a month. I'll give you an example. There was one practice that moved across to Dentaly and we do have a short notice filler feature on Xact, but the way that we've incorporated into Dentaly, we just made it a little bit easier and more intuitive to use. And just, it's just in your face because dentists are busy doing dentist stuff and we want to get out of your way.

[00:17:53] So that means we want to make things easier. So you don't have to spend time fiddling around and clicking buttons and trying to locate things. So the short notice filler is in your face and dentally. We had one practice, five surgeries. When we rolled out the short notice feature, this five surgery practice with no training had an extra 50 appointments in that one month. So that's just the power of it. It's all about your perspective on how you view the software.

[00:18:19] In my view, the practices that commit to migration are not uniformly more sophisticated than the ones that don't. I think they share something else, a different framing of the decision. The ones that stay ask what could go wrong. The ones that move ask, what are we not able to do right now? And what is this costing us? What do the practice owners who commit to migration have in common? Do you see a common profile, a career stage or a mindset?

[00:18:44] It's just the mindset that I speak to practice owners, all different walks of life, different ages, different backgrounds, different nationalities. But the one thing they have in common is they understand that their software is just another tool that they need to leverage to meet whatever goals that they've set out, whether it's a commercial goal and operational goal, whether it's better work life balance, whether it's improving patient experience. But when they are just looking at just as another

[00:19:14] cost, then I would argue, are you going to compromise the other tools in your practice? Are you going to get a really old x-ray machine that might not be as accurate just because of cost? Are you going to compromise your patient experience? Are you going to compromise the integrity of your business and the way your practice is run? But I understand and I appreciate that misconception because software is everywhere and all around us. And most softwares that we come across, we don't really look at it as a

[00:19:39] tool. For example, whether it's social media software, things like that. So it's really easy to kind of fall into that trap of thinking that it's just another software, like a Facebook, like an Instagram, like whatever other app or website you go on. But no, this is how your business is run. Your business depends on it. And why would you compromise the brain of your business? That's essentially what it is.

[00:20:04] And again, it's not their fault. But I've seen the light bulb moment so many times where I explain to practices. I'll give you an example. There's some, you know, practice owners that they'll go from a really basic package on exact. So it's just the exact basic package, none of the bells and whistles. And then they're looking at the pro package on dentally. And it's to give an analogy, it's like kind of going for like a really basic Volkswagen Golf that's like 30 years old. And hopefully people who are into cars will understand like Volkswagen Golf, they're solid cars,

[00:20:33] they will last a good while. And they're reliable, they do the job. But then but they're going to be affordable now. But then going from that to a fully kitted out Lamborghini, electric Lamborghini, Eurus with all the bells and whistles and the trimmings and all that kind of stuff, you can't compare the two. The current costs are different, the kind of package they require and dentally is going to be different for each package, each practice. But let's just say there's a practice that's going to spend an extra 100 quid a month. And this happened. And they're arguing about this

[00:21:03] extra 100 quid a month they're going to spend. And all I say to them is, look, we're going to continue talking about this 100 quid a month that you're going to spend, then let's end this conversation. But if you want to talk about making extra five 10 grand a month, then come back to me and have that conversation. And I can show you how this software will save you a bunch of time, it's going to automate a bunch of manual tasks. And the AI is going to replace a lot of the manual boring work that you're going to do and automate a bunch of stuff. And it's not only is going to save

[00:21:30] you time, it's going to scale your business, then that light bulb moment happens. Once a practice is on the cloud, what's the first thing that they actually notice that they couldn't do before? I'm not talking about the product spec. But what do they tell you that they actually feel that's different in their business? I'll give you a good example. So I've got an 11 month old baby at home, and he's crying away. So I don't know if you can hear it if it picks up on the mic. But there's this one practice owner that

[00:21:57] was telling me they were an exact, they had one member of staff who was who was a mum, she had a newborn at home, she would spend at least an hour a day still at the practice after work doing her notes. And then after they migrated across the dentally, she was leveraging all of these AI features, the AI voice clinical notes, and she was going home on time to see her baby. So things like that, they wouldn't really they didn't take into consideration or thought about

[00:22:24] from a work life balance perspective. And it has a knock on effect. So now this dentist is going home on time going to be a lot happier in generally, and it's going to go into work and be able to give a lot more that she'll have more energy should be happier. But then also commercially speaking and operationally speaking, saving a lot of time using these features. And now they've got more time. And it's up to them what they want to do with that time. A lot of practice owners, they just want that

[00:22:51] time to chill. And they don't want they don't want extra work, because their business is doing well. Some use that as an opportunity to grow their business. So who doesn't want more time on their hands, right? I want to go a little bit deeper now onto the integration layer, because I think that's where the most significant commercial argument lives. Cloud native practice management opens up API connectivity in a way that server dependent systems fundamentally cannot. Can you walk

[00:23:17] me through what the dentally API ecosystem actually makes possible for a practice and what that means practically for their clinical workflow? To explain it simply to practice owners that might not be as technical. The back end of dentally is basically open. The software developers did that intentionally so that third party companies can build really cool apps and integrate into dentally. Because what we don't

[00:23:40] want to do is again, compromise the experience, we're aware that we don't know everything, we're going to do the best that we can, whatever we can do, and whatever we know, we do it the best. But we're super conscious and aware that there's going to be geniuses out there that are going to make really cool tech, really cool software. And we want our customers to benefit from that. So that's why we have that

[00:24:03] system in place. And we've got a really good partnership system in place where we have third party companies that partner with us. We really believe in their tech. API design in healthcare is a genuinely complex question. There's a spectrum between fully open API where any developer can build against the platform, and a more governed integration model where the platform curates

[00:24:29] who integrates and how. From your position, what's the right model for dental practice management software in an environment where patient data security, GDPR compliance, and clinical governance are not optional? So I think because of the advancements of AI, we have to be a little bit more careful for our customers. We can't compromise the data. So now we do have a little bit more of a curated approach, but that's only to benefit our customers, to give them the best as well, to give them the best integrations

[00:24:59] available. When we had a fully open API system, it was almost like the Wild West. We were encouraging and allowing really smart people to make amazing tools. We had that period, but now we've matured, dentally's matured, and our partners have matured as well. Now we can really start to see specific partners really find their own place in the industry. And we want to create a safe, curated space for our customers.

[00:25:26] Cloud PMS is necessary infrastructure for AI integration, but it's not sufficient. The practices that migrate and then continue running the same workflows they had before, just without the server, are not really building advantage. They're paying more for parity. Is the promise of the integration layer actually being realized by the practices that have migrated, or is it mostly theoretical for the majority? I would say it is a mix. I do come across some practices that don't take advantage of the software

[00:25:56] because they didn't take advantage of the training. So I always say to customers, whenever they move across, I always encourage them, the training is the goldmine. Have it recorded if you need to. Ask all the questions. I mainly deal with the practice managers and the practice owners. And I would say, what is it that you want in your life personally? Do you want to retire sooner? Do you want to make, is it X amount of money that you want? Do you want to buy a new Lamborghini? Like what, like, what is it that you want? And then figure that out. And then say that to the

[00:26:22] trainers, this is what I'm trying to achieve. Operationally speaking, commercially speaking, et cetera, et cetera. I just want to save more time. I just want to automate things. And they will show you how to get it done. They will build that path for you. And it is up to you to carry that on. Once you've been trained on it, you know, it's, it should be relatively straightforward for you to carry that on because again, a lot of the systems in place are going to be automated. Once you've set it, it's plug and play and it carries on running. And I think you should always keep on pushing the limits

[00:26:51] of what you can do with this software because this software is the brain of your business. You need to continue to push. You can't stay stagnant. You can't be complacent. And I think that applies to everything in life. And again, individuals that are dentists that work in the dental industry, for you to get there in the first place, you couldn't have been complacent. Don't cop out on this. That's what I would say. And when you look at how dental practice owners are responding to AI right now, the mix of curiosity, dismissal and genuine anxiety, how closely does that respond

[00:27:19] to what you saw in 2015 to 2018 in the creator space? I think if you're not leveraging AI, you should be so scared. You should be so terrified. You should be worried. If you're using and leveraging AI, then you have nothing to worry about. There was this saying that I would see all the time on LinkedIn that AI won't replace people. It will replace people that don't use AI. And it's so true. It's completely disrupted the influencer space. You know, I was in that space for 10 years

[00:27:44] and now influencers are competing with AI generated influencers who are absolutely just cleaning up. They're just taking over that space. And I would say it's that these AI influencers, they're controlled by a real person. A real person made that influencer and has an understanding of influencer marketing and may have actually been an influencer before they started their own AI influencer. So I would say that applies to this. If you're not using AI, if you're not leveraging the

[00:28:09] latest technology, you should be very, very nervous. You should be afraid. You should feel these things. But if you are leveraging it, then I would say continue to leverage it. Don't be stagnant. Don't be complacent because AI is only growing at an exponential rate. Therefore, you should always have that perspective that your understanding has to always develop as well. If you want to be really, really successful in this industry. In the next 10 years, there will be a clear divide between the UK dental practices that

[00:28:39] use this disruptive period to build the infrastructure and data architecture to operate in an AI driven dental market and those that did not. If you could sit across the table from a practice owner who is on the fence right now, what's one thing you would want them to understand about that decision that they currently do not? If they're not on cloud, they're already 10 years behind. And in two years time, if they're still not on cloud, then they're 20 years behind. Because even though that doesn't make any sort of

[00:29:07] mathematical sense, but it's going to feel like they're 20 years behind because that's how quick things are moving. I think a lot of dentists just think that we're just trying to sell to them all the time. I truly believe in the power of it and how it benefits. So when I speak to my customers, I'm just really honest, they're going to be missing out. They're leaving a lot of money on the table. And it's not just money. They're leaving a lot of time on the table as well. And again, not to sound too deep and philosophical, but a lot of practice owners, they've got a lot of money,

[00:29:36] but they haven't got a lot of time. These tools are just going to give you both things in abundance. So I would say you can't really put a value on that. Leverage any tool that's going to save you time because whether that's spending more time on more patients, helping more people out, because I hope one of the reasons that they became a dentist is that because that can help people and this will allow them to help more people. This will allow them to save time so they can spend it with their family, save more time. They could just have more time to themselves.

[00:30:05] It's a powerful tool. They need to really think about that. Braddeep, thank you. This has been a fascinating conversation. We've come to our lightning round. So these are some quick fire questions. You've spoken to hundreds of practice owners. What's the single objection to cloud migration that you've never once found convincing when you actually unpacked it? I would say it's the training and having a new software to learn. The most typical thing is, oh, my practice manager has been using the same software for 30, 20, 30 years.

[00:30:32] And for me, it's as simple as going from an Android phone to an iPhone. The first week, it's going to feel a little bit, it's going to feel different, but you're going to get used to it. So that's why it's just not a convincing argument for me. Cloud PMS or AI integration, which do most UK practices understand less well right now? Oh, that's a good question. That is a really good question. I'll probably say cloud. I'll probably say cloud. Finally, what is one thing about how dental software actually works under the hood that would most change

[00:31:01] how practice owners made decisions if they understood it? It's so secure. It's so safe. When you have your data stored locally in your practice, anything that happened, a fire, burglary, or your server most likely will just break down in a few years, which you've got to replace is going to cost you thousands and thousands of pounds. You're probably spending quite a bit of money on IT support for them just to back up your data. Whereas we can back it up. It's going to be more secure. And if your IT support are backing up your data,

[00:31:30] they're probably using something like Amazon Web Services is what we use anyway, or I would hope that's what they use. You know, it would be very concerning if they're not using a cloud sort of solution to back up your data. So they're already doing that for you, most likely. You're just cutting out the middleman, essentially. You're getting more security. It's going to be more cost efficient in the long run. Radeep, if someone listening to this wants to go deeper or connect with you, where can they go? You can add me on LinkedIn and you could email me. I'm sure Randeep will have that in the show notes.

[00:31:56] You could also drop me a WhatsApp. I'll leave my work number as well on there. So it is a work number. It's not my private number. Just drop me a WhatsApp. I have my work phone on me all the time. I'm happy to help. But thank you for a great conversation. It's nice to hear from someone on the front lines of dental tech. The organisations that are going to lead in the next decade of dentistry are not the ones with the biggest budgets or the most software. They're the ones asking better questions about what they are actually building for.

[00:32:23] That is what Tech Dental is here to do, to make sure the people in this industry are asking those questions with more rigour, more data and more clarity. If this episode sharpened how you think, share it with one person in your network who needs to hear it today. Subscribe, like, share and comment. Your support means a lot. Links are in the show notes. I'm Dr. Randeep and this is Tech Dental. I'll see you in the next one. You've been listening to the Tech Dental podcast, strategic intelligence for dental leaders navigating structural change.

[00:32:51] If you're responsible for growth, performance or long-term value in this industry, make sure you're subscribed. I'm your host, Dr. Randeep. We'll see you next week.