Article taken from the July 2022 issue of Forbes Italia. Subscribe!
Deka, founded in 1991, is part of the El.En group, a reality born ten years earlier from the idea of a university professor from Florence who decided to rely on one of his best students. The performance of Deka brand products has allowed the group El.En. to invoice approx 135 million euros in 2021, within a total consolidation of 571.4 million euros. The business model has Italian, German and American markets as its main reference markets. The company, which designs and manufactures sophisticated lasers, is one of the major international players in the field of aesthetics and surgery and mainly deals with dermatology, plastic surgery (including body applications), otolaryngology and gynecology. But not only that: today the machinery produced by the company is also used for the restoration of cultural heritage.
Leader in the restoration of cultural heritage
The union between the medical and cultural sectors arises from the sharing of fairly similar needs. Today the cultural heritage, in fact, can be considered “the great sick of the new millennium”, which must be treated, otherwise they would risk further deterioration, due to atmospheric pollution and vandalism. Cultural heritage is a field in which the Florentine reality soon became an international leader, returning to its ancient splendor, among others, the David di Donatello, the Tower of Pisa and the Pope’s private chapel and in the Apostolic Palaces.
“The interventions also include the one inside Notre Dame”, he says Paolo Salvadeo, CEO of Deka and general manager of El.En. “There many of our lasers are working to clean up the cathedral after the terrible fire of 2019. We also intervened inside the Louvre Museum, on the Gate of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, on Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael, in the Palace of Versailles and in more than 35 Unesco sites around the world “.
The last intervention, in chronological order, was carried out on the Cathedral of Orvieto, defaced by a vandalism written against Inter. “As soon as I read what had happened in the newspapers,” Salvadeo continues. “I immediately got in touch with the president of the Opera del Duomo of the city, offering our intervention to clean up everything with the laser. There are no realities that have our expertise and our knowledge in terms of cultural heritage, and when we can do it we are willing to lend a hand ”.
But the core business remains that linked to the medical sector
Yet Deka’s core business is another, namely the design and production of lasers for medical applications. “Our technology grows and improves year after year. We are leaders in the sector, in a field where study and programming are fundamental. And we have a very strong drive for innovation. The key to our success? We work closely with doctors: more than our customers, they are collaborators with whom we constantly compare ourselves to understand how it is possible to improve our product and what patients’ requests are “.
The company is known worldwide for having created and launched the Monna Lisa Touch carbon dioxide laser system, for the treatment of vaginal atrophy, for problems related to post menopause or following breast cancer surgery. But also for cutting-edge tools for laser-assisted lipolysis, including the new one LipoAI based on artificial intelligence algorithms, and for the treatment of localized fat, adiposity or cellulite (Onda Plus): in the latter case, “a tool that gives extraordinary results after just one treatment”. But that’s not all, because with these cutting-edge devices you can treat scars, psoriasis, vitiligo, vascular lesions. And it is also possible to remove tattoos, effectively and permanently depilate and rejuvenate the skin. Without neglecting the problems related to the intimate health of women, including urinary incontinence and vulvodynia.
The customer’s voice at the center: Deka’s winning model
The great advantage that places Deka at the top in the electro-medical sector? “We do not develop anything to impose on the market, but we start from a completely different assumption. We ask, we listen to the insiders, then we work with them to create tools that really serve users. The so-called ‘voice of the customer’ is brought to Deka and a multifunctional mechanism, called ‘concurrent engineering’, which involves the various functions and departments of the company in a transversal way, to arrive at a product that makes sense for the market. We also have an internal photobiology laboratory that is unique in the world; before a laser goes into production we carry out a series of histological analyzes developed by biologists and doctors. When everything is ready and tested in every detail then it is placed on the market “.
Without forgetting the obsessive care of what Deka calls “the last mile”, that is to say the relationship with customers. “The customer service and after-sales processes are fundamental. For example, in Italy we do not use couriers, but we go directly to deliver the machinery with our operators, then we go to install it and finally the specialist who trains the doctor arrives. We periodically carry out direct updates, or through webinars, to illustrate all the news in detail “. The technology is 100% made in Italy. “We reinvest around 5% of our turnover in research and development every year, because we believe it is essential to always be at the forefront and not be caught unprepared in the face of a constantly evolving market. Not to mention that we are present in more than 120 countries and that in every nation different certifications and obligations are required that we must respect, as ours is a highly regulated sector “.
Deka’s fame and access to the elite of scientists
The fame and notoriety have allowed Deka to associate with a large number of scientists. “Next 6 September we will host at our special event at Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence, the Professor Gerard MourouNobel Prize in Physics of 2018. I have known Gérard for years and I had the honor of presenting him, together with the other Nobel Prize in Physics 2018, Donna Theo Strickland, even to Pope Francis, who received us in the Apostolic Library. Together, Gérard and Donna have developed a technique for creating ultra-short laser pulses, which are also essential in some of our state-of-the-art tools. Without the discovery of the Cpa (Chirped pulse amplification), their invention, among other things, it would not be possible today to use the so-called ‘Lasik’, or to carry out eye interventions that have allowed tens of millions of people around the world to reduce or eliminate the problems caused by myopia and other visual defects “.
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