Vatech, Helping Technology Fulfill Its Potential Where It Matters
“Our products are excellent, but selling them is not enough.”
The message from a distributor in Eastern Europe was clear. Equipment needed to be installed in compliance with local radiation safety standards. Someone had to be available to respond promptly when problems arose. Above all, dentists needed training to make full use of the software.
These were practical needs that no explanation of product quality alone could meet. Customers needed support to put the technology to effective use in their own practices. Vatech found its answer in locally delivered training and service.
Vatech’s approach to service began with a sincere commitment: to keep every customer’s practice running without interruption. Today, the company is building that commitment into a business model that serves customers in more than 100 countries. At the center of this effort is Eric Chi, Global Division Head. Over the past 11 years, he has managed Eastern European markets, served on assignment in the United States, led the Czech subsidiary, and overseen European operations. For Chi, Vatech’s next chapter is about more than selling additional products and services. It is about building the company’s infrastructure around the world.
Leadership Forged in Crisis, Training and Service Built to Last
Vatech’s core strength lies in a system that brings together its distributors, its customers—dentists—and its in-house training and service teams.
Chi experienced the power of this system firsthand at Vatech America. subsidiary. After taking up an assignment there in 2018 while continuing to oversee sales in Eastern Europe, he found himself facing a serious challenge. Sales in Eastern Europe had been falling sharply since around 2017, leaving him under intense pressure. What helped him regain his footing was a simple reassurance from Brian Hwang, then head of the U.S. subsidiary and now CEO of Vatech: “It’s all right. I’ll take responsibility.” Hwang’s decision to prioritize the foundations for long-term global growth over immediate sales figures left a lasting impression on Chi.
With some of that pressure lifted, Chi focused on bringing the U.S. subsidiary’s well-established operating model to Eastern Europe. Under this model, specialists supported distributors’ sales efforts and continued to help customers use their equipment effectively long after the sale. That conviction led Chi and Anton Nodzak to establish the Eastern European Training and Service Center in the Czech Republic in December 2021, even as pandemic-related border closures made international operations difficult. Vatech needed to do more than supply equipment. It needed to build the local expertise and infrastructure that would allow customers to use that equipment with confidence.
From Hardware to Platforms
The Czech subsidiary served as a hub for hands-on customer support, but its progress did not immediately show up in the numbers. Chi remained patient. He consistently emphasized two principles to the local team: follow headquarters’ guidelines and operate transparently. In markets with different cultures and business practices, he believed clear and consistent standards were essential.
Combining those principles with close attention to local needs began to deliver results. Annual sales grew by tens of percent, and Vatech secured the leading market share in the Czech Republic. The subsidiary also expanded exports to neighboring countries, including Hungary and Poland, substantially growing Vatech’s European business.
Vatech is now entering a new phase. Its 1.0 era marked its first steps into international markets. Its 2.0 era brought advances driven by low-dose imaging technology. Now comes “Global 3.0”—a phase in which the company aims to draw on its accumulated global capabilities to reshape its business.
“The role of our overseas subsidiaries is not simply to sell products,” Chi says. “It is to build Vatech’s infrastructure around the world.”
His central strategy is to broaden the scope of the business. The vision is to evolve from an equipment supplier into a provider of software platforms for dental diagnosis and practice management, combining high-quality hardware with intelligent software.
Realizing that vision will require leaders across Vatech’s 25 overseas subsidiaries and four offices to pursue two priorities in parallel: meeting near-term sales goals while reading market shifts and shaping the business’s medium- and long-term direction.
Vatech’s growth potential is gaining recognition in markets around the world, including Africa. For Chi, the ultimate goal is not merely to introduce its products to more countries, but to make the Vatech ecosystem part of how dental practices around the world diagnose and care for patients. This ambition underpins his drive to help Vatech reach KRW 1 trillion in revenue.
What Vatech brings to the world is more than products. It is a commitment to supporting those products throughout their use, so they continue to do their job in customers’ practices. As Vatech grows, it is extending that same sense of responsibility to customers around the world.
