Message Boards
Today's Active Topics Today's Active Cases Browse Forum Categories My Recent Activity My Messages Private Groups My Marked Threads My Subscriptions
Today's Active Images Today's Active Polls Most Active Topics Global Townie Map Advanced Message Board Search Message Board Terms of Use

Corporate Profile: Discus Dental

Start Discussion










Once the young upstart of the dental industry,
Discus Dental continues to mature and thrive by focusing on customer service.



Textbook Success
It’s been almost 20 years since Discus Dental burst onto the scene propelled by the success of a product category that it reinvented and elevated to a new level: teeth whitening.

Discus was one of the first dental manufacturers to step up its marketing game. Company founders Dr. William “Bill” Dorfman and Robert Hayman spared no expense in launching sophisticated campaigns that emulated those of consumer products companies such as Calvin Klein and Giorgio of Beverly Hills.

The classic “Five Faces” campaign was already resonating strongly with dental professionals when Dr. Dorfman was chosen to appear on the reality TV show, Extreme Makeover. The national exposure drove consumer demand for whiter, more attractive smiles and established Zoom! as one of the best known brands of chairside whitening systems.
This success skewed the dental profession’s perception of Discus as an innovative whitening company that was arguably one of the best marketers in dentistry. However, Discus not only excels in many more product categories than whitening, it has also developed into a solid middle-market company that continues to improve as it matures.

How to Drive a Cultural Shift
In its early days, Discus was like any other successful start-up: hard-driving, fast-moving and reacting quickly to market changes and opportunities. It was led by a small group of energetic 20- and 30- year-olds who personified the passion, charisma and moxie that allowed Discus to become one of the fastest growing companies in dentistry.

This business model and corporate culture served Discus well, enabling it to achieve approximately $150 million in sales in less than 10 years. However, in order to sustain growth, improve efficiency and move the company forward, several changes needed to be made – it was time for Discus to grow up.

The evolution from an entrepreneurial culture to a managerial culture is a delicate process. Countless companies have collapsed under the strain of this type of seismic shift. However, at Discus, the secret to a successful cultural transition was the development and recruitment of high-energy executives who had hands-on experience in hyper-growth, entrepreneurial environments, as well as more established organizations with managerial-type cultures.

The company’s founders assembled an accomplished executive management team that is currently entrusted with the day-to-day leadership of Discus Dental. The team has contributed substantially in taking the company from a teenage upstart to a successful, mature organization. Today, Discus is a very nimble, yet strategic, customer-focused company guided by fact-based decision making.

“Our cross-functional management mission is quite simple – to make it easier for dentists to do business with us and make it easier for the dentist to practice dentistry,” says CEO Steve Semmelmayer. A 29-year dental industry veteran, Semmelmayer held executive positions at companies such as Kerr Corporation, Sybron Dental Specialties, and LED Medical Diagnostics (VELscope) before joining Discus in 2008.

Semmelmayer and his team are far from corporate suits working in an ivory tower. On any given day, a Discus executive can be found riding along with a field sales representative, meeting with dentists and their staffs along the way. “It’s a great way for us to keep in touch with our customers and conduct some grassroots research,” explains Semmelmayer. “Dentists are usually very surprised and appreciative when one of our top managers comes to visit them simply to learn more about their wants and needs.” Semmelmayer’s vision for the company also includes building a customer- focused team that truly understands how a dental office operates.

Operations Overhaul
The rise of Discus can be partially attributed to its direct-to-dentist sales model, which eliminates the middleman, ultimately providing significant savings for dental professionals. However, operating a direct sales organization requires direct customer service and support, along with an infrastructure to support a higher volume of transactions, management of data, and the logistics needed to ship individual orders to thousands of dental offices on a daily basis. “With no distributors to rely on – or to blame, for that matter – Discus alone is accountable for maintaining long-term customer satisfaction,” explains COO Robert Cartagena. “It is up to Discus to make or break its own destiny.”

According to Cartagena, Discus recently conducted a series of market research surveys aimed at determining exactly what drives a dental professional to choose one product over another. “Reviewing the research data was enlightening, to say the least,” he states. “We found that the top four drivers for purchase intent among American dentists were #1, quality; #2, a positive customer experience; #3, sales rep knowledge and support; and #4, affordability. Innovation and marketing were #9 and #12, respectively. Although we’ll never walk away from our legacy of product innovation and compelling marketing programs, we’ve set new priorities for our company, which are directly in line with what is most important to dental professionals.”

To meet this challenge, the company formed the Customer Synergy Task Force – a crossfunctional team of rank-and-file Discus employees who have been identified as natural leaders and change agents. They’re not only tasked with establishing consistent standards of customer service across the organization, they are responsible for integrating Discus Dental’s customer-focused philosophy internally. The team is also responsible for the development and execution of strategies that will increase customer loyalty and ensure a positive customer experience with every contact. This year alone, the company has invested heavily in information and sales systems to improve the sales and delivery process. Because Discus has higher profit margins than manufacturers who use a two-tiered distribution model, the company has been able to reinvest in improving the customer experience. “This reinvestment is essential to our long-term growth and is being applied to virtually every customer touch point, from telesales to online shopping to billing. You name it, every department has been audited and sweeping improvements are being made in an effort to improve what it’s like to do business with Discus,” says Semmelmayer.

Manufacturing & Product Development
In the mid-90s, in order to control costs and quickly align product development with changing market demands, Discus morphed from a company dependent on contract manufacturing to one that manufactures a wide range of dental products.

Today, Discus manufactures more than 90 percent of the products it sells and is licensed to manufacture drugs, medical devices, cosmetics and even food. This provides the company with complete control over quality, supply and pricing, which in turn, benefits the dental professional.

“Because we make the majority of our products, we can recommend them to our customers with the highest degree of confidence,” says Vice President of Manufacturing Scott Mejia. “We view the customer relationship as a longterm partnership; therefore, we’ll do whatever it takes to manufacture and deliver products that best serve the needs of dental professionals and their patients. At the end of the day, it all comes down to customer satisfaction.” Mejia, a 16-year veteran of Discus, operates a 110,000-square-foot manufacturing facility that ships out nearly 2,000 boxes a day to dentists all over the United States.

Despite the company’s dominance in teeth whitening, it’s never lost sight of the need for innovation in other product categories. This is why one of the first tasks undertaken by Semmelmayer when he joined Discus, was to re-energize the R&D department. “It’s very important for a direct sales organization to have a robust product pipeline, and now we have that.” He says, “We’ve got some very exciting new products with groundbreaking technologies in the area of oral hygiene, surgical devices and, of course, teeth whitening, that we’ll introduce over the next 18 months.” The company currently generates approximately 70 percent of its revenue from whitening, but would like the split to be closer to 50/50 over the next few years. “This goal is well within reach,” says Semmelmayer.

Beyond Whitening
The Zoom Advanced Power and NiteWhite ACP Whitening Systems undoubtedly cast long shadows. But Discus is a well-rounded dental manufacturer with a full line of premium-quality, innovative products ranging from the popular Splash! super-hydrophilic impression materials; FLASHlite LED curing lights; Matrixx resin-based composites; PERFECtemp temporary material; and Insight ultrasonic inserts. “All Discus products provide dentists with high quality, great value, and superior service,” says Semmelmayer.

“We’re particularly proud of our Smart Endodontics line, which makes root canals fast, conservative, and predictable for the average dentist,” says Cartagena, who was instrumental in getting Discus into endodontics. “We’ve invested heavily in the commercialization of a complete endodontic system which is built upon incredible patented technology, and is a perfect example of how Discus Dental is making the practice of dentistry as easy and predictable as possible.”

Evidence-based Marketing
Discus invests heavily in marketing research to balance its extremely creative marketing team. “In a dynamic marketing group, creativity can sometimes run away with itself,” says Vice President Global Marketing Jennifer McNally. “We keep ourselves on strategy by tempering creativity with facts learned through structured research like surveys, as well as focus groups and anecdotal information gathered from time spent with customers.”

McNally explains that there is also a new emphasis on being able to “walk the walk before talking the talk.” “Before we claim that we’ve improved our customer service, we’ll make certain that the improvement is in place and that it’s obvious to the customer. Otherwise, our message will be hollow.”

That being said, Discus is a marketing leader in dentistry and always has been. The company has no intention of slowing that down. McNally says, “When we ask dentists what they think, what they feel and what they want, we can provide them with the right products supported by the right creative campaigns. Creative for creative’s sake doesn’t sell more products or improve the bottom line.”

Why Should Dentists Care About Discus?
Love it or hate it, Discus has changed how dentistry is practiced, and how manufacturers approach and communicate with doctors. And according to Semmelmayer, “The next phase for Discus will continue to include product and marketing breakthroughs all created with dental professionals in mind.”
Dr. William Dorfman: Still Involved, Still Passionate
When Dr. William Dorfman began his successful cosmetic dental practice in 1985, he had no idea how far dentistry would take him or how much entrepreneurial instinct was hard-wired into his DNA.

By 1990, he was performing more chairside whitening procedures than any other dentist in Los Angeles and perhaps the entire country. The same year, he introduced his how-to book for dentists entitled “The Smile Guide.”

In 1990, Dr. Dorfman founded Discus Dental, which started with tooth-whitening products in 1991 such as NiteWhite, DayWhite, and later Zoom! Today, he is the leading ambassador of cosmetic dentistry, thanks to his appearance on TV shows like ABC’s Extreme Makeover, and CBS’s The Doctors, while Discus is one of the largest dental manufacturers, and in the words of Dr. Dorfman, “So much more than a whitening company.”

Discus did not grow to its present size through the efforts of one man alone. Unlike other entrepreneurs who limit the growth of their companies by trying to do it all, Dr. Dorfman was savvy enough to assemble a management team that could help him grow his company and plan for the future.

“I’ve always been very involved in Discus Dental,” he explains. “Of the three major shareholders, I’m the only dentist, so I still participate in product R&D, marketing, creative campaign development, and conducting seminars. I love contributing whenever and wherever I can.”

Dr. Dorfman is equally passionate about giving back to the community through his participation in a variety of charitable programs, such as the Children’s Dental Center of Greater Los Angeles, the Crown Council’s Smiles for Life Foundation, and the LEAP Foundation motivational program for young adults.

How does he sustain this level of passion and dedication? “I once asked Donald Trump what he considered to be the secret to success. His simple answer was ‘Love what you do.’ I not only agree with him, it’s a requirement for working at Discus.”
Dentaltown Magazine
October 2025
Dentaltown Magazine October 2025 Read Current Issue Read Archived Issues
Sponsors
Townie Perks
Townie® Poll
Who or what do you turn to for most financial advice regarding your practice?
  
Site Menu
Message Boards Magazine Continuing Education Podcasts Blogs Classifieds Dental News Events Townie® Poll Ebooks Townie Choice Awards
Company Info
Contact Us Advertise With Us Howard Farran DDS, MBA Policies and Agreements
Site Help
The Dentaltown Team, Farran Media Support
Phone: +1-480-445-9710
Email: support@farranmedia.com
©2025 Dentaltown, a division of Farran Media • All Rights Reserved
9633 S. 48th Street Suite 200 • Phoenix, AZ 85044 • Phone:+1-480-598-0001 • Fax:+1-480-598-3450