Dr Nilesh R. Parmar is the clinical director of Parmar Dental, the Essex dental group the company says he founded in 1977 and where he followed his father, Dr Ramesh C. Parmar, into practice.
An implant surgeon who still treats patients every week, he was voted Best Young Dentist at the Dental Awards in 2014 and holds an MBA from Imperial College London along with two Masters degrees.
He splits his time between Essex and London, and between surgery, lectures and the race track. He told Business Matters why he never stepped down from the dental chair, why his reputation compounds and what motorsport has taught him about improvement.
What are you currently doing at Parmar Dental?
I am the clinical director of Parmar Dental, a group of dental practices in Essex. My role is deliberately diverse. I still spend most of my week treating patients, primarily in implant and cosmetic dentistry, but I also oversee the practice’s clinical direction, team, investment, growth and overall patient experience.
It has always been important to me to remain a practicing dentist. As the business grows, there can be a temptation to move further and further away from the things that originally made you successful. I never wanted that. Being in surgery made me connect with the patients and the reality that the doctors who worked with me faced.
I have also always been interested in the health business. I completed my MBA at Imperial College London alongside my postgraduate dental education, and this has influenced the way I approach my practice. Dentistry is clearly a clinical profession, but dental practice is also a complicated small business. You have people, property, technology, regulatory, marketing, finance and customer service all operating together.
Outside of practice, I attended college, contributed to dental and health media, and grew in the wider profession. I like to be able to move between clinical dentistry, business and communication instead of defining myself by only one of them.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
My biggest inspiration is my father, who is also a dentist. I grew up seeing firsthand what it means to build a practice, take care of patients over the years and be part of a community.
However, when I qualified, I wanted to build on that foundation in my own way. I became fascinated with implant and restorative dentistry and invested heavily in my postgraduate education. Over the years, I have completed two Master’s degrees, in prosthetic and implant dentistry, and finally an MBA.
The combination of clinical education and business education changed the way I viewed dental practice. I want to create an environment where good clinical dentistry and a well-run business are not seen as competing goals. In fact, we support each other. Successful practices can invest in people, technology, facilities and training, and ultimately provide better care to patients.
The business has developed a lot since then, but the principle remains quite simple: treat patients properly, invest in good people and keep improving.
Who do you admire?
I admire people who are successful but still curious and driven. I am particularly interested in people who have managed to perform at a very high level in various disciplines rather than allowing themselves to become comfortable after achieving success in one area.
In business, I admire entrepreneurs who are prepared to take calculated risks and understand that failure and setbacks are part of the process. I’m less interested in the entrepreneurial image and more interested in the resilience behind it.
I also have great admiration for my father. He built his career in a very different era of dentistry and taught me the importance of reputation, relationships and consistency. Technology changes, business changes and marketing changes, but when people trust you and know you’re going to do what you’re going to do, it’s still valuable.
Motorsport is another important part of my life, and racing has given me many different people to admire. The best racing drivers combine preparation, discipline and confidence with the ability to remain calm when operating at close range. There are some lessons that translate well into operations and business.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
I must have learned to send earlier.
When you build a business around your own professional skills, it’s very easy to believe that you should be in control of everything. In the early stages that can even be useful because you learn how each part of the business works. But it ends up being a limitation.
You cannot measure yourself.
Over time, I became more aware that my job was not to be the best person at every task. It’s about finding great people, giving them responsibility and creating an environment where things work.
I will also worry less about the occasional failure. Earlier in my career I wanted everything to be immediate. Experience teaches you that some investments will go wrong, some ideas will fail and occasionally you will make the wrong decision about people or opportunities. The important thing is to find out quickly, learn and move forward.
What defines the way you do business?
I would describe it as ambitious and disciplined, but pragmatic.
I like to move quickly and I like to make decisions, but I also strongly believe in measuring results. Whether we are investing in new technology, recruiting doctors, introducing new services or changing the way the practice works, I want to know what is actually making things better.
I also believe that self-esteem compounds. In healthcare especially, short term thinking is very dangerous. Patients can stay in a dental practice for decades and recommend several generations of their family. The lifetime value of doing the right thing far outweighs anything you can gain from maximizing individual transactions.
I am also competitive by nature. Motorsport is one of my passions outside of dentistry, and I race cars as well as do track events. Racing teaches you that improvement usually comes from hundreds of small changes rather than one big breakthrough. You analyze the data, find lost time, make adjustments and come back.
That means how I approach business. I keep asking what we can improve, even when things are good.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
So great before worrying about being known.
We live in an age where you can create your personal brand almost instantly, and there is nothing wrong with using social media or promoting yourself. I’m both. But visibility should enhance substance rather than replace it.
Invest in your education and skills. Know the numbers in your business. Learn how to communicate. Surround yourself with people who are better than you in areas where you are weak.
I would also tell people not to confuse turnover with success. Businesses can look great from the outside when they are financially fragile. Cash flow, margins and investments are very important.
Take calculated risks, but make sure you can live with mistakes. Some of the best decisions I’ve made involved taking risks, but none of them required betting everything on one outcome.
Finally, enjoy the process. There will be other targets: more practice, another qualification, another financial milestone or another lap time. Ambition is useful, but if you put off enjoying life until you’ve achieved everything you want to achieve, you may find that the finish line keeps moving forward.
For me, success has increasingly been about having the freedom to pursue some of the things that really interest me: treating patients, building a business, communicating about health care and racing cars. I think the best businesses end up offering more choices, not less.