Demant has welcomed 54 new colleagues and added 62 points of sales after Audika Belgium acquired the audiology business of Goed Hulpmiddelen in August. IT & Data colleagues from various Demant locations travelled to Belgium to help with the integration.

The vision for Audika is to help more people hear better, and a central part of that is to be close to the customer.

This has now been made more possible in Belgium after the latest acquisition of Goed Audiology, a hearing retailer that was owned by the Belgium health insurance fund, Christelijke Mutaliteit. A fund with around 4.8 million members.

“It’s fantastic news and a great accomplishment also for the M&A team because this is a real game changer for the Demant business in Belgium,” says Leo Huibregtse, General Manager of Audika Belgium.

Audika Belgium will double its size, become the third largest retailer in the country and significantly strengthen its presence in the Flanders region mainly with a shop in shop-concept, making it possible to reach even more people with a hearing loss.

Decisive help from Demant colleagues
With the acquisition, Demant welcomes 54 new colleagues, 46 of them audiologists, and shortly after the acquisition was final, they were all onboarded and welcomed to Audika.

Furthermore, the fast integration of the Goed business in Audika was made possible with the help from 16 IT-colleagues from various Demant locations, making data transfer and integration run smoothly. The expertise arrived in Belgium from Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and US.

“It has been fantastic to see colleagues arriving from so many Demant locations. We needed to migrate out of Goed’s IT-system very fast, and we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that with our local team here in Belgium,” Leo Huibregtse says.

“We managed to get 62 shops operational in terms of hardware, software, and data in one week. That is a great testament of our Demant DNA and company values such as team spirit and can-do attitude. Now, we are ready to operate and help more people hear better the Audika way,” he adds.