Concept Of Organizational Behaviour And Management – Bausch & Lomb Case Study

Summary of the case study

Describe about the Concept of Organizational Behaviour and Management.

The study provides a deep understanding about the concept of organizational behavior and management system. In order to establish a clear view, the study has considered a case study. Through analyzing the case study, here the study demonstrates specific issues and resolving policies. The entire case study is summarized at the initial section and then discusses several situations related to the case study. The case scenario is about the organization Bausch & Lomb which is one of the largest suppliers of the eye health products (bausch.co.uk 2016). The respective organization is headquartered in New Jersey, United States of America (bausch.co.uk 2016). The products they produce and offer include contact lenses, eye care products, and Surgical IOLs (Intraocular lenses) and equipment (bausch.co.uk 2016). Here, the case scenario is surrounded by the issue with one of their eye care products. 

The case scenario is based on the blurred vision of the organization Bausch & Lomb. The prime vision of the respective organization is to provide healthy medical products as well as services to the customers (bausch.co.uk 2016). The fact is quite unrealistic that the consumers think that the medical products available in the market are 100% pure and safe all the time. In order to be more precise, the consumers use to believe that the manufacturers of the medical products ensure that the products they offer are free for serious harms or damage. Furthermore, they believe that if the manufactures find that the products hamper the health of the consumers, they take immediate actions in order to fix the problem. Study defines, ReNu with MoistureLoc, one of the most popular and lucrative eye product was sold by the respective organization. This particular eye product was a contact lens cleaner which created health problem since the year 2005.

It has been found that the people used this particular eye product faced eye infection Fusarium Keratitis. The reason behind this eye infection was first noticed by the doctors in Hong Kong, in the year 2005. However, they failed to make the connection of the eye infection with the product ReNu with MoistureLoc. In the following year 2006, Bausch & Lomb stopped selling this particular product in the Singapore and Hong Kong. The year was the evident of the more than 100 people who was suffering from eye infection in US, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In some cases, the people needed to get cornea transplants. The producer of the product was voluntarily and temporarily suspended in Australia from the supply of this product. The company stated that no cause of infection is scientifically determined in the product, though they informed all the pharmacists to stop selling the product.

Role of the control system of an organization in such cases

The control system of an organization has an essential role that they should play in this kind of situations. As per the statement of Miller and Rice (2013), the prime role of control system lies o resource allocation, performance measurement, coordination, risk mitigation and so on. In such kind of cases, the control management of an organization should identify the problems that its customers are experiencing. Secondly, they should find out the root cause of the problem rather than spending time on proving there is no existence of the problem. Through addressing the root cause, they would able to eliminate the problem  in a permanent basis. Along with that, they should also determine the expected expenditure that would result from the operations of mitigating the risks. In this kind of cases, the control system of the organization should control the distribution channel so that no more customers would be affected by the eye product. This way, they are able to convey the message that they value their customers. 

Through analyzing the case study, it has been noticed that respective organization has informed all the medical stores to stop selling the product. Along with that, they initially stated that it is not scientifically proven that the product is the cause of the eye infection. It has been found that the company tried to prove the fact that the product is not the cause of the eye problem that their customers faced. Though, after a certain period of time, the company finally agreed in joint press released by United States Food and Drug Administration that the product increases the risk of the Fusarium infection. Thus, it can be said that the control system could have played more effective role in this case. Through investigating the matter at the initial stage, they could mitigate the problem at relatively lower cost. The step of removing the product from all the stores across worldwide they had taken at later stage could have been considered earlier.

As opined by Kim and Zou (2013), the control system concentrates on the organizational operations before, during, or after certain processes. Three major types of control are there that include feedforward control, concurrent control, and feedback control. The feedforward controls defines the process of preventing deviations in the standards before they occur. On the other way, the concurrent control defines the process of monitoring the ongoing activities. Lastly, the feedback control is the reviewing process after the event occurred. In this case, feedforward control is the most important process that the control system of the organization could have pursued. This is because, this control process could have prevented the eye infection that the customers suffered from.

As stated by Burke (2013), the immediate corrective action helps to control the damage and fix the problem in a quick manner in order to prevent the worse situation. This particular corrective action could have been considered by the control system of the organization. Through adapting this corrective action, the worse situation might have been managed. Immediate actions against selling the product that caused eye infection was required. Simons (2013) added in this context that basic corrective action is another major process of resolving problems. In order to be more precise, this particular problem solving process fixes the root cause at most basic level. In this case, both he corrective action process could mitigate the problem. However, it has been found that the immediate corrective action is comparatively more important in this case. 

The information control could play more effective role in this case. As discussed by Simons (2013), the prime role and responsibility of the information control system is to acquire all the necessary information and spread it in the entire team. Information control could provide the information of the market and at early stage so that the organization could successfully handle the worse situation that they faced at the later stages. The financial control could direct the organization towards the direction where they might face less financial constrain in mitigating the issue. Apart from this, they could interact with the customers and gathered feedback about the eye product. This way, the eye infection problem could have been identified at the early stage and mitigated as well.

Through analyzing the case scenario, it has been found that the respective organization did not timely notify the stores in Australia to stop selling the product. This is the reason that they were suspended from supplying the product ReNu with MoistureLoc in that country. Further, the product remained on sale in the stores of South Australia more than a month even after recalling the product. The organization have not played an effective role in informing all the stores in their supply chain. The Australian Authorities could have taken strict ways in order to make the remaining stores stop selling the product. This way, they could have minimized the situation from becoming worse.

It can be stated that other organizations became more aware about the products they are going to launch. The information and financial control system of the organizations understood about the need of becoming more efficient so that their customers would not have to confront this kind of problems. Along with that, the reputation of those companies would remain unaffected. More strict as well as effective policies need to be incorporated in the control system of the organizations so that they could identify the potential issues and are able to resolve them before getting worse.

Conclusion

The study concludes that the respective organization has confronted a major issue due to their product that caused eye infection. The customer loyalty was hampered and thus the reputation of the company was affected. It further concludes that the control system of the organization have not played an effective role in this situation which was the reason that the situation became worse. From this situation, other organizations were able to understand about the effectiveness of the control system. The study here discusses about the fact and states what could have made the situation better.

Reference List  

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