Our Commitment is Personal
Our mission is simple: helping everyone, everywhere see better
Introduction
Andre Bens, Ph.D., Alcon Manufacturing and Quality Control
Dr. Bens has been with Alcon since 1982.
Eyesight is a very precious thing to have. And so people know that if they can contribute to improving or restoring eyesight, that is obviously something they would want to do. And it's very tangible. When you show people when they are hired videos of people who have eye diseases and you show them the faces of people that through Alcon products have their eye diseases cured, it's obviously a very motivating step towards having commitment. And this is what we have from all our people worldwide.
Narrator
Many companies say they are committed – to their mission, to their employees, to their customers. But it's only when you begin to examine a company's actions that you are truly able to gauge whether a company delivers on that goal.
Alcon, Inc. is the world's largest eye health company. That fact alone – that Alcon concentrates almost exclusively on eye health – says something. Our mission is clear – Alcon and its nearly 13,000 employees around the world are focused on one thing: helping people see better.
Cary Rayment, Alcon Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Rayment assumed the position of CEO in 2004. He has served Alcon since 1983.
There's a recognition by employees at Alcon that what they do day in and out really contributes to advancing the care and treatment for patients throughout the world. When you think about it, we all want to retain and preserve our vision throughout our life, and the fact that Alcon is so focused on advancing eye care throughout the world is something that employees can really feel good about, and so they are very committed to our overall mission. And what is that mission really? It is to develop and manufacture and market high quality products that help preserve, restore, and enhance vision.
Narrator
In 2007, Alcon celebrates its 60th anniversary. For those 60 years, Alcon has attributed its ability to deliver on its promise of helping the world see better to three strengths: its dedicated people; the partnerships they foster with physicians and the eye care and scientific communities; and the first-class products that are the result.
Each of these has been crucial to Alcon's success. And each will be even more important in the years to come as Alcon seeks to meet the eye health needs of a growing – and in many areas of the world, aging – population.
People
Narrator
Most of us take our sight for granted. But if you talk to any of the people who work at Alcon, they will tell you of an experience, probably many experiences, where it was driven home that sight is precious and that none of us will be able to take it for granted forever.
This realization is one of the things at the heart of Alcon's employees' dedication: everyone knows that someday, a loved one or even they themselves, will have their sight saved, improved, or even restored by the work Alcon does.
So Alcon's goal to help people worldwide see better, while sounding very grandiose, is also very personal. And once you've made this goal personal, it becomes easier to understand how what you do affects the whole, how your job is a necessary part of the puzzle that is eye health worldwide.
Take this example from Winona Edwards of Alcon Humanitarian Services as she talks about a medical mission trip to Ethiopia.
Winona Edwards
"It is very exciting to see these patients regain their vision, even if it is only a little bit. ...for them to even be able see light at times is, because the cataracts are so dense, just incredible.
The last mission trip I was on was in Ethiopia, and this man, after they took the eye shield off, saw the doctor's fingers, and I mean literally jumped up out of his chair – and these are not stories made up, these things happen – he jumped up and shouted, "I was dead, and I now I live!" He was a tailor and hadn't been able to make a living – and he wasn't an old man – he was in his fifties – because of the cataracts. And now, overnight he can get back to living. And so yes, it does fuel our excitement about being a part of a company that can make such a big difference in a person's life."
Ms. Edwards has been with Alcon since 1986. Alcon supports physician-organized medical mission trips through the donation of products and manpower. In 2006, Alcon supported 1200 medical missions, most in developing countries.
Narrator
Making a difference in a person's life. As I said, for most here at Alcon, preserving, enhancing, and restoring vision has become not just a corporate mission but a personal mission as well.
Alcon recognizes this, and understands that this type of understanding and dedication cannot be taken for granted. Kay Cox, Alcon Human Resources, expresses this quite succinctly. Ms. Cox has been with Alcon for 16 years.
Kay Cox
You can take away the buildings, you can take away the equipment, but if you take away Alcon's people, if you take away the talent – you have nothing.
Narrator
Alcon knows that the company has to be a great place to work in order to acquire, motivate, and keep talented people. This, of course, includes providing excellent benefits and ensuring a safe and productive work environment. But perhaps even more importantly, creating this kind of environment requires a conscious commitment to the long-term view that a company must nurture talented people over time, that employees are even more valuable as they grow over time. This commitment is one of the reasons Alcon has been on the Fortune 100 list of Best Places to Work for the past nine years, and the average tenure of Alcon employees worldwide is approximately 10 years.
This commitment is also reflected in Alcon's commitment to continuous learning and improvement. Alcon supports employees with training programs and as they seek formal education outside the company. But it is an integral part of Alcon's overall strategy to also educate its customers, most specifically the physicians who use our products. Every year, Alcon sponsors and hosts more than 48 symposia and clinical education programs for eye care professionals.
This commitment to education extends beyond the continuing education of eye care professionals in the developed world to the training of physicians around the globe. In fact, Alcon has built over 60 physician training centers worldwide, many in emerging markets.
Winona Edwards describes the training that very often occurs in the undeveloped world through medical missions.
Winona Edwards
It is a wonderful opportunity for skills transfer on these medical mission trips. The doctors are eager to learn the skills of the North American doctors or any other international doctor from a developed country. They have often had minimal training--sometimes there are nurses there, wanting to learn how to do surgery – anything to help with the blindness backlog that they're experiencing. And of course, the doctors on the mission trip certainly have a heart for not only taking care of the patient but helping to leave some skills behind and enhancing what those physicians can do in-country.
Narrator
With offices in more than 75 countries and sales in more than 180, Alcon is well-positioned to know what the local needs are. We have never exited a market we have entered, because we know that serving people means having strong relationships with and supporting the people on the ground, in this case eye care professionals, who know first-hand what the true needs are and how those needs can be effectively met.
Kay Cox
I think all of us in our hearts, we like making a difference. And when you work for Alcon, in the field that we work in, and you know about the products that we use that help people preserve their sight – that's an important thing to do, it's an important mission, and it's a good thing to feel good about.
Passion. That may be the word that Alcon people feel about what they do. That's maybe the best way to say it.
Partnerships
Narrator
Back in 1946, Alcon began with a partnership. Alcon's founders, Robert Alexander and William Conner, not only partnered with each other to form the company, but partnered with the doctors they served at their small pharmacy. This led to the development of the very first Alcon product, a sterile, topically applied suspension for the treatment of eye infections. Before Alexander and Conner developed their innovative methods for creating and delivering sterile suspensions, eye treatments often caused as many infections as they cured
So the ideas of partnership and collaboration, particularly with customers, in order to understand and meet needs has been part of Alcon's identity from the very beginning. And our customers tell us that it is that interest, that respect, that allows them to partner in Alcon's innovation, that gives us our edge. It's what makes us the leader in eye health.
Scott Krueger of Alcon Research & Development talks about the concept of partnership at Alcon. Dr. Krueger has been with Alcon for 17 years.
Scott Krueger, Ph.D.
Partnerships are critical to Alcon's success. We recognize that we cannot be kept abreast of all the new scientific advances by our own resources, so we must work closely with and interact with a lot of different kinds of people. We also recognize that there are a lot of people out there who have great ideas equally as valuable as those that Alcon has, so we want the kind of partnerships that will allow those individuals or groups of people to come to Alcon to help see the fruition of those kinds of efforts and discoveries.
Narrator
So not only do we make our own discoveries in Alcon's labs, but because of the strength and quality of our relationships with physicians, leading academic institutions, and even other healthcare companies, we have access to a wide array of promising compounds and devices from outside of Alcon. Sometimes these compounds and devices aren't even specifically aimed at the ophthalmic market.
This is where the concept of applied research comes in. One of the ways Alcon innovates is to take a discovery that may not have a clear application to eye health and find a way apply it to meet a need.
Scott Krueger defining applied research:
Scott Krueger, Ph.D.
For me, the definition of applied research is the ability to take a discovery and make it fit a specific need. You take an element of discovery and provide value to it, either in caring for a patient, in helping a patient feel better, a patient see better, in helping a doctor do a surgery faster or in a more safe manner.
Narrator
Because physicians use Alcon products everyday, they are the experts and in the best position to make suggestions for enhancements or for new devices. And because of the way members of the Alcon sales force act first and foremost as consultants when they are out in the field, we are able to witness and gather information on these ideas first hand.
So just as key as the idea of applied research is an emphasis on creativity. Doctors are most successful when they deliver the best outcomes for their patients. And you might be surprised at how frequently they develop new techniques or twists on existing techniques in order to provide the best possible end result for their patients. They then pass this knowledge on to Alcon, and the end result is better eye care for everyone. In fact, a member of Alcon's Surgical sales force spends approximately 75% of his or her time in surgery with the physician, spreading knowledge between physicians and gathering ideas.
Scott Kreuger on creativity:
Scott Krueger, Ph.D.
Creativity is really at the core of what we are trying to do at Alcon. The premise of our business model is that we trying to meet the needs of the eye care community. In order to be successful, those needs must be unmet. So one must be creative about how one chooses or is able to meet a need. Do we need to build something new? Do we need to discover something new? Is there some way that we need to take something that wouldn't work before and modify it to make it work in today's environment? So there are aspects of creativity in every part of our business model.
The collaborative process is an essential element for achieving and maintaining a leadership position. As broad as the science is in ophthalmology, as diverse as the science is in ophthalmology, everything from biology to cell biology to physics and beyond – optical physics and mechanical engineering – as broad as all those fields are, there's no way a company the size of Alcon, or any other company for that matter, can stay current based upon their own resources. We must utilize and effectively interact with people of various disciplines, of various companies, of various academic experiences, of various skill sets, to achieve what we hope is the best ultimately for eye care.
Products
Narrator
Alcon's products fall into three divisions: Surgical, Pharmaceutical, and Consumer Vision Care. We are the leading maker of ophthalmic surgical, pharmaceutical, and contact lens care products, and our products treat patients suffering from cataracts, glaucoma, and dry eye, as well as eye infections, inflammation and allergies. We also provide innovative solutions for patients in need of retinal or refractive surgery.
That's the concrete and maybe the easiest way to define what Alcon provides its customers. But another way to define what Alcon provides is in terms of quality.
If you listened to the section of this piece titled People, you heard Kay Cox, Alcon Human Resources, talk about Alcon people's passion and their knowledge that Alcon's products can save someone's sight. And if you listened to the Partnerships section, you heard Scott Krueger talk about the creativity that is at the heart of the way Alcon approaches developing treatments and devices. But ultimately, all of this is in the service of one thing -- providing patients with the highest quality eye care products possible.
Andre Bens of Alcon Manufacturing talks about quality at Alcon -- how quality is designed into a product from its conception:
Andre Bens, Ph.D.
Quality to me is a high degree of excellence. It starts with the design of the product, development of the product. And during that process at Alcon, both the manufacturing people, the quality assurance people, the validation people, the engineers, if we have medical devices, are working hand-in-glove with the R&D folks, and so when you start from that premise, that you go very early in this process, what you essentially see is that we build in, besides the functionality that obviously the R&D folks bring with it, and the novelty that they bring with it, is the manufacturability of the product. Because you can design the best product there is, but if you cannot manufacture it, then obviously you don't build quality in that product.
From the start of the process, we are very close to our R&D colleagues in making sure that we develop something that has the quality built in.
Narrator
Alcon sees quality as more than conformance to specifications. We believe strongly in not only meeting but exceeding standards, avoiding short cuts, and a continual commitment to improvement. For example, the FDA requires that any intraocular lens have a one-in-a-million chance of leaving the plant non-sterile. Any lens that leaves that Alcon plant has around a one-in-five-million chance of non-sterility.
Our long history of delivering products that are absolutely the most advanced in their various classes has led both physicians and their patients to expect the same – and even better – in the future. And this is a challenge that we are happy to accept, because doing so means more people seeing better worldwide.
Andre Bens, Ph.D.
What I believe to be true, and which is the reason for the success of our company, compared to other companies that are in the same field, is that the commitment that we have of our people is better than other companies'. That's why we have better products, we have more novel products, we have higher quality products that are serving the customer needs. That's really what it's all about.
Conclusion
Narrator
Alcon knows that a commitment to health of any kind, including eye health, is not a short-term commitment. Because of the ever-changing nature of disease and the overall aging of the world's population, Alcon recognizes that we must not only be ready for change but anticipate it; that part of our responsibility is to cause change through creative research methods and therapeutic approaches.
Cary Rayment describes our mission in terms of focus:
Cary Rayment
One of the things that has made us unique over the years is our business model, which has evolved with a very strong focus on eye care and really advancing the state and the treatment of eye care worldwide. And this focus allows us and everybody at Alcon to better understand what the needs are, whether they be ophthalmologists, or patients, or other eye care providers, in terms of advancing the treatment of eye care.
Narrator
Advancing the treatment of eye care is Alcon's only focus. And we know that in order to be able to continue to lead, we must remain committed to our employees, committed to the partnerships we've built with physicians and the scientific community, and committed to developing products of the highest quality. Because at Alcon, we are committed to helping everyone, everywhere see better.
Featured Speakers
- Andre Bens,Ph.D., Alcon Manufacturing and Quality Control
- Kay Cox, Alcon Human Resources
- Winona Edwards, Alcon Humanitarian Services
- Scott Krueger, Ph.D., Alcon Research and Development
- Cary Rayment, Alcon CEO
- Lorena Salgado, Narrator
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