Avoid Pulling Teeth: Straumann Group's Journey to Scale Global Talent Acquisition

Scaling a global talent acquisition (TA) function isn't just about hiring more people. It's about building an efficient, structured, and data-driven system.

For Straumann Group, a global leader in dental technology, this meant transforming from a fragmented, high-cost recruiting model to a streamlined, AI-powered hiring strategy — replacing extraction with attraction.

Ajay Patel, Global Head HRBP for HR, Finance, Data & Tech, Corporate Functions at Straumann Group, shared how the company leveraged AI-driven automation and intelligent hiring technology to scale recruitment across 65 countries. By integrating essential elements of the Phenom Intelligent Talent Experience platform, they reduced agency reliance, optimized recruiter workflows, and enhanced the experience for all talent stakeholders.

Catch the highlights below!

The Scaling Challenge: Rapid Growth, Inefficient Hiring

As a global leader in dental technology, Straumann Group has always prioritized innovation — not just in its products but in how it attracts and retains top talent. With a proud Swiss heritage dating back 70 years, the company has grown into a global powerhouse in dental implants and technologies.

The company's workforce has grown from 6,000 to 13,000 employees, and annual hiring has increased from 1,200 to 3,500, thanks to their rapid expansion plans. As they evolved from a traditional dental implant manufacturer to a digital dental technology company — incorporating AR/VR technologies that allow surgeons to train others remotely — their talent needs have dramatically changed. This transformation has required recruiting for entirely new skill sets, including software developers at their growing hub in India and treatment planners across various centers worldwide.

"For us, being able to attract software developers into a dental company when we're competing with Meta and Google… that's a hard slog," admitted Patel. Not only did they need to scale TA efficiently while maintaining quality and consistency across regions, their hiring model needed to evolve to keep up with demand and deliver an even better experience for candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers.

Patel outlined three key areas for improvement:

Reduce third-party recruitment costs —“It was easy to provide a business case for transformation of the model because 25% of all hiring was being done through agencies. Tens of millions were being spent on agency fees. So it was really easy to say, ‘Hey, we need to change our model. There's a cost benefit, there's a service benefit. We can make things better for our managers and candidates as well.’”
Standardize hiring processes — “Every region is different. How we recruit in China is so different to how we recruit in North America. In China, LinkedIn is illegal. In Russia, there are data privacy laws that we can't get around. There are so many nuances and things that you have to anticipate as you transition into a global organization, life gets more complicated. But still, there's a way to get 80% of the world into one unique workflow.
Enhance data-driven decision-making — Hiring decisions were often manual and reactive, limiting recruiters' ability to predict talent needs, engage the right candidates faster, and optimize hiring outcomes with AI-powered insights.

Building a Connected Talent Ecosystem: The ATS Integration Advantage

The first major shift was transitioning from an HRBP-led approach to a recruiter-driven model, enabling TA teams to take a more strategic, data-backed role in hiring.

A cornerstone of this transformation was integrating SAP SuccessFactors as their ATS alongside Phenom's AI-powered solutions and simplified Hosted Apply process. "Following a very long RFP process with our procurement team, we signed an agreement with SAP to be our new global ATS. We retired lots of other things. And then we also signed an agreement with Phenom. That was the starting point of really thinking of standardization and globalization at scale to bring everybody into one ecosystem," Patel explained.

Straumann was able to take advantage of Phenom Certified SuccessFactors Integrations to create a tightly coupled tech stack. "We moved from what was a fragmented model of recruiting to a much more consistent model which was run by region and business unit with an underlying kind of global standardization and strategy for technology, process, and a bunch of other things," he elaborated.

The intention?

Increased Recruiter Efficiency – AI-driven automation handles repetitive tasks like resume screening and interview scheduling, allowing recruiters to focus on high-value work.
Engaging Candidate Experience – Personalized job recommendations, automated follow-ups, and a conversational AI-powered chatbot ensure job seekers receive timely, relevant communication.
Seamless Hiring Journey – From job search to onboarding, candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers work within a connected ecosystem, improving speed and reducing friction.

"We started with the concept of experience — first for the candidate, then for the recruiter. It wasn't just about getting people in the door. It was about creating a seamless journey," Patel emphasized.

A Five-Pillar Approach

To support its global expansion and long-term talent goals, Straumann focused on five core areas to build a future-ready hiring process. By enhancing each touchpoint — candidates, recruiters, hiring managers, employees, and HR systems — the company created an integrated, AI-powered recruitment model that improved efficiency, engagement, experience, and decision-making.

1. Candidate Experience

A great hiring process starts with a positive candidate experience, so Straumann prioritized creating a frictionless, engaging journey for job seekers by mapping the end-to-end candidate experience — from initial job exploration to offer acceptance.

"We actually got a massive 12-meter sheet across a wall and drew a candidate process diagram,” shared Patel. This detailed mapping helped the team identify key pain points in the candidate journey, particularly around the career site experience and application process.

Based on these insights, Straumann rolled out Phenom Candidate Experience first to improve the functionality and look of their career site, ensuring job seekers could easily navigate opportunities across countries. Not only did its AI-powered job recommendations suggest roles that match candidates' skills, interests, and career aspirations, its clean, intuitive design reduced drop-off rates and improved application completion rates.

"We wanted to make applying to Straumann as simple and engaging as possible. AI helped us personalize the experience, ensuring candidates felt valued from the start," Patel shared. “We're enhancing our recruitment presence by using Phenom products to target specific talent populations, direct them to our career pages, and deliver tailored messaging that resonates with the candidates we want to attract.”

2. Recruiter Experience

As part of Straumann’s effort to empower the core team responsible for finding great talent, the company also implemented Phenom Recruiter Experience. Patel reiterated how vital it is to also consider the recruiter experience while transforming the overall TA process.

One of their most valuable tools? Phenom Fit Score, which helps recruiters prioritize candidates by analyzing job title match, years of experience, skills, and location. Recruiters can even fine-tune the AI scoring to adapt to different roles and regions.

Another significant opportunity for improvement emerged in interview scheduling. "Interview scheduling consumes 20 to 40% of a recruiter's valuable time and represents one of their most challenging daily tasks," Patel explained thoughtfully. "There's nothing more disruptive than last-minute cancellations requiring complete reschedules." This insight led Straumann to implement Phenom Automated Interview Scheduling, which delivered impressive results — saving 144 hours of recruiter time during just the pilot phase alone.

3. Hiring Manager Experience

Hiring managers play a critical role in recruitment, but without the right tools, they often rely on instinct rather than data. Straumann transformed their experience by integrating Phenom Hiring Manager, Phenom AI Insights, and structured processes to:

Provide real-time dashboards with AI-driven analytics, enabling hiring managers to track applicant progress, view talent insights, and make data-backed hiring decisions faster. Phenom Fit Score helped prioritize candidates based on skills, experience, and role requirements, reducing guesswork in the selection process.
Enable structured feedback collection, ensuring managers could easily assess candidates, compare evaluations, and collaborate effectively with recruiters.
Create centralized reporting and analytics, offering visibility into recruitment performance across business units, functions, and regions. Hiring managers could identify bottlenecks and refine their hiring strategies with data-driven recommendations.

This approach helped ensure hiring managers had the right information at the right time to make better hiring decisions while creating consistency across global operations.

4. Employee Experience

While much of Straumann's initial focus was on external hiring, they recognized that employee experience is equally important for retention and internal mobility. As part of their five-pillar strategy, they began laying the groundwork for future internal talent development.

By focusing on capturing skills data now, Straumann is preparing for a more sophisticated approach to internal talent development, helping current employees find new growth opportunities within the organization. “This is a part of our strategy as we do have plans to implement talent mobility,” explained Patel.

5. HRIS Experience

"Different ways of working across regions lead to misaligned services," Patel noted. "We had to build new infrastructure and technology, which meant that we had to build out much more complex HR systems and solutions.” The seamless integration between their ATS and Phenom was critical to:

Standardize the global operating model, unifying recruitment processes and cost allocation for consistent service delivery. "A lot of hard conversations come around. Who reports to who? Who owns the budget? Am I allowed to change your process or technology, and do you have to come in line with global?"
Create a single source of truth for talent data, eliminating fragmented systems and reducing manual entry errors
Enable strategic upskilling, training TA teams to leverage the integrated platform for higher-value activities

The Results

By leveraging AI and automation, Straumann transformed its TA process — making hiring faster, more strategic, and experience-driven with measurable efficiency gains. In just one quarter, they witnessed:

42,833 hiring status changes, streamlining the candidate progression through automated workflows
144 scheduling hours saved via Phenom Automated Interview Scheduling
29,296 Fit Score views, demonstrating strong adoption of AI-powered candidate matching that improves with each use
459 hours saved via Phenom automations, freeing up recruiters to focus on strategic work instead of administrative tasks

“At this point, I think we have some of the best tools on the market… but the biggest focus now is driving change management,” Patel shared. "Once we establish the right technological foundation with clear processes, standards, and well-defined roles and responsibilities, the organization begins to naturally embrace and thrive with these innovations. The initial implementation requires dedicated effort, but once people become comfortable with the new systems, we see remarkable results and continuous improvement across the organization."

Lessons for Scaling Talent Acquisition

For organizations embarking on a similar journey, Patel offered five key insights:

Start with candidate experience. "Start with what this will look like to a user you're trying to entice into the organization."
Prioritize recruiter experience. “The recruiter experience is critical. You can buy all the coolest tools on the planet… but if you don't drive adoption and think of the recruiter experience that goes with it, the ROI will not come. Train, drive adoption, reward good behavior, measure everything!"
Create and monitor a strategic implementation plan. “You've got to be very intentional about a roadmap, a tech plan, a strategy for governance, process, and recruiter capability — and really monitor with metrics, usage, and behavior."
Expect gradual progress. "We're only in the ‘Developing’ stage of the talent acquisition maturity model today. We've got a long way to go to get to excellence and be a really strategic function, but we are well on the way."
Establish strong foundations before scaling. "Once the foundation is in with tech, process, and standards, the magic starts happening. But it requires a good kick at the beginning."

Just as Straumann expertly crafts dental implants that transform smiles, their precision-engineered TA approach proves that in both dentistry and hiring, the most successful outcomes leave everyone smiling.

Elevate your TA strategy with Phenom Talent Acquisition to attract better candidates, streamline your hiring process, and deliver exceptional experiences at every touchpoint.

Apurba