Management

Organizing of Management at Baxter Healthcare

Organization is a big management function at Baxter Healthcare. It takes a tremendous amount of organizing to run a successful organization year in and year out. There are many branches of the organizing function of management that are used in daily, monthly, and yearly activities. For the management of my organization, organizing is as critical aspect of planning for the present and future as any. In this paper I will discuss the importance of knowledge and technology in the organizing aspect of my organization and how they play a role in current and future activities.

Organizing is defined as the assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals (Bateman & Snell, 2004). The aspect I want to first discuss is how knowledge plays a big role in the organizing function of management in my organization. This is extremely important for organizing an organization because management has to obtain as much knowledge as possible. Here is a quote I will share that I have in my office from management "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge" (Thoreau, n.d.). They have to know about their plans for the future, their employees, competitor's plans, changes in their market, and what to expect from the customer. They also have to try and plan for the unexpected things that happen to an organization. My organization starts the knowledge process by attending a convention called Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI). It is a meeting of medical device organizations and customers who are there to preview and review existing and new products. It gives my organization a chance to know what is out there presently and what is on the horizon for our competitors. Baxter Healthcare uses this convention as a steeping stone for planning in the future. They will involve a large amount of management to go around to the different booths of other companies and find out what their products are all about. That gives the organization an idea of what we are up against and what we have to plan ahead for. It is here were organizing comes into play with management for gaining all the knowledge possible to achieve maximum success. It is also a very important function for management to organize their employees. Baxter does this by creating an organizational chart. It provides knowledge for everyone within the organization of who is grouped with and a run down of their responsibilities. This is a tremendous help to identify personnel you might not be familiar with, but have an idea of who they are associated within the organization. Knowledge is an extremely important branch of the organizing function of management and when properly obtained it can build success for years on down the line. Knowledge is not only key to all management when organizing, but a key for the entire organization.

Technology has affected the organizing function of management almost on a daily basis. Technology is changing so rapidly that management has to be very flexible in their daily activities. When management takes technology into consideration they have think about the future which can be a very difficult task. Technology affects my organization in the organizing function in a big way. It definitely keeps us as an organization on our toes of what is next and if we can find it before our competitors. A great example I can give is at the end of the third quarter Baxter will release a wireless infusion pump that will be able to communicate with the hospital's computers to download patient history, view an existing patient's prescription, and provide many other functions to make the hospitals more versatile in delivering what the patient needs. This function has been in the organizing process for a little over a year and with the help of added software to the pump it should be a big success. Technology also can affect the organizing of management's employees. It is crucial for the employees to keep up with today's technological advances otherwise a good portion of companies get left behind. In the healthcare market which is such a competitive industry getting behind the competition is digging your organization a difficult hole to get out of. Technology is so crucial to the organizing function of management that Baxter spends a lot of time with its employees on training for the newest technology available. We are currently in the process of implementing a system called Siebel. Siebel is designed to give us an entire paperless system and provide us more options for creating better work orders for the customer. It will cut down all the file cabinets and space taken up by years and years of documentation. This will also give us as an organization unlimited access to find customer information and help the customer's questions to be answered more efficiently. Organizing is a difficult task for management but the technology that is available as long as used correctly makes those tasks that much simpler. Technology is such a big part of our organization that we are constantly as divisions having meetings on how certain technology can assist us in speeding up our jobs processes. The organizing function in our organization is driven by technology. We have organized a website with all of our products for customer's to review, the review process is all done online for the Baxter employees, and finally we have an internal website that keeps us up to date with all the changes locally and globally within the organization. Technology is a key for all companies trying to stay competitive in their market and the advances Baxter has made puts my future and the organization's future on the path for a very successful future.

The affect that knowledge and technology have not only has an organizing function of management, but on the company as a whole is enormous. Without those two aspects however, the management team at Baxter Healthcare would not be able to provide the insight or have the tools to establish such a great company and work environment. For a company to be part of the big players in this industry these two aspects have to be a must and fortunately for me and the organization they have done a great job of utilizing these tools!

References

Bateman, T. S. & Snell S. (2004) Management: The New Competitive Landscape.

Chapter 1, 17, New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved June 13, 2005, from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/content/eBookLibrary/content/Print.aspx?assetid=05bf80b9-1ab5-44cd-baba-4d2d5e73be30&assetmetaid=6d130ccd-14e8-4845-b7d5-680e75c0228a

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