13 minute read
Ocusoft’s Recipe For Success
OCuSOFT ® ’s R E C I P E F O R S U C C E S S Building Their Brand in Rosenberg
WRITTEN BY STACEY GOOTEE PHOTGRAPHY BY BAC PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN
OCuSOFT ® ’s story and success is literally the stuff of the American dream. In 1986, Cynthia Barratt, President/CEO, and Nat Adkins Jr., Chairman, founded CYNACON as a research, development and funding company for ophthalmic products. Shortly thereafter, a second company, OCuSOFT Inc., was formed to market over-the-counter ophthalmic products.
However, OCuSOFT ® needed to come up with an innovative product. They developed their very first commercial eyelid cleanser.
This became a breakthrough in the eye care industry and remains the #1 Doctor Recommended Brand of Eyelid Cleanser on the market.
Rose Mary Martinez is the Senior Vice President of Sales and has been with the company since the beginning. She helped to market and sell their first product, OCuSOFT ® Lid Scrub ® . She describes how until OCuSOFT ® Lid Scrub came to be, the only method of cleansing eyelids that doctors offered their patients was baby shampoo applied with a cotton swab. This company has truly changed the face of eye care for hundreds of millions of people across the world. What began as direct-to-doctor office sales calls is now a nationwide, as well as global, sales and shipping enterprise.
Today, OCuSOFT ® products can be found in pharmacies like CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and local grocery stores, and are also shipped overseas to 56 countries. OCuSOFT ® participates in
over 70 trade shows a year and sends out over 15 million samples to doctor’s offices annually. The company also employs 40 outside sales representatives throughout the country. The original sales box that was once used for the direct-to-doctor sales, is still on display in one of their many historical museum sites on location. Today, doctors regularly approach the company with requests for new products and the company does their best to meet these needs.
Stacy Foster, Executive Vice President, explained, “The Company prides itself on presenting the doctors and the public with the newest innovations in eye care products.” It is clear that the ingredients that began their success were a belief in the product they had and the knowledge they could do more.
OCuSOFT ® ’s first five years were spent in a small building in Richmond on FM 359, and their past five years have been spent in their latest 72,000 sq. ft. facility, located on the Southwest Freeway in Rosenberg. Cynthia Barratt, President/CEO explained,
“We decided to continue growing our business in Rosenberg because of the business-friendly environment.”
Upon expanding to the new location, they needed to have access to city sewer and water. Past Rosenberg mayors Vincent M. Morales, Jr. and Cynthia McConathy and their respective staffs were more than happy to accommodate their needs so the business could continue its growth. The Company is already making plans to add an additional 40,000 sq. ft. This expansion will begin in 2017. Of course, this continued growth means hiring more employees and bringing in even more revenue for the City.
OCuSOFT ® employs over 140 people, including their out of state sales representatives. Over 70% of their employees are based in Fort Bend County. The company encourages its employees to stay in the area and to stay with the company through its Employee Development Program. OCuSOFT ® recognizes employees or “Team Members” (as they refer to their staff) with potential or the drive for growth and promotes from within.
OCuSOFT ® trains Team Members in-house with extensive online courses and education. Virtually every Team Member is offered OCuSOFT ® ’s training program as they move up
Cynthia Barratt and Shantell Hurt New Warehouse Facilities
within the company. Thomas Mason, Vice President of Corporate Development, jokingly commented, “We are just too lazy to hire new people!” Everyone laughed and then he said, “Seriously, we believe in giving our people every opportunity to go as far as they want with us.”
Promoting from within is very advantageous as well as business savvy for any company to do. It gives employees goals, makes for a positive work environment and cross trains staff in multiple disciplines. It is plain to see this is another of the ingredients that makes OCuSOFT ® so successful.
The Houston Chronicle began choosing “Best Places to Work” seven years ago and OCuSOFT ® has been chosen every year since the beginning.
These results are based upon employee surveys. The survey answers are taken very seriously by the company and each year they strive to do even better. OCuSOFT ® began an in house program called “Hack-A-Thon”. All the employees are divided up into teams and challenged to come up with something the company can do better. The suggestion needs to include a workable idea with a plan that illustrates the cost and benefits for the company and staff. The cash prize for any ideas implemented is $500. The process of selecting a winner is comparable to what is presented on the popular television series “Shark Tank”, except at OCuSOFT ® , it is more friendly and positive. The first year they began the program 17 ideas were submitted and 15 were implemented.
An example of one such plan was submitted by a Team made up of members from multiple departments. The company was printing invoices for sample boxes being sent to customers. The samples were free and the Team Members couldn’t understand why they were taking the time to print invoices and stuff them into the boxes. So, the company stopped producing the unnecessary invoices and this saved the company $60,000 a year in both time and printing costs.
Another idea was adding “Live Chat” on the website in the product purchasing area. This change provided a benefit to both the sales department and the consumer. The result was that the sales department was able to better serve the consumer by answering questions and heading off problems before orders went to the warehouse to be shipped. By
implementing a program like the “Hack-A-Thon,” the Team Members are given a real opportunity to contribute to the company’s growth and put something of themselves into their careers. Valuing what their team members have to offer is most definitely one of OCuSOFT ® ’s most important ingredients for success.
When asked about Rosenberg’s current and future economic development and what role OCuSOFT ® might play in it, the answers were quite forward thinking. Thomas Mason, Vice President of Corporate Development, and Charles Hewitt, Vice President of Finance, both agreed that Rosenberg has a bright future. Both are happy to see an influx of commercial and retail business moving into the area. They also feel that Rosenberg is a city ripe for light manufacturing as well because of its proximity to both railway and the freeway infrastructure improvements. The City is also well suited for easy access to the Port of Houston. Both Mason and Hewitt believe that an increase in light manufacturing would bring continued economic stability to the City as people move into the area and this type of employment continues to grow.
Randall Malik, Economic Development Director for Rosenberg expanded on these comments. Part of the City’s business-friendly atmosphere has to do with the cost of land as well as the size of the tracts. The tracts cost less and are larger. Basically, businesses get more for their money by moving out of the “big city”. Malik commented, “Light manufacturing moving into the area has what we call a ‘multiplier effect’, it attracts more residential growth.” When asked what type of residential growth Rosenberg was hoping to expand he replied, “Single family homes.” Rosenberg has a Triple-fork class one railroad depot that ships products across the country. The expansion of I-69 and the proximity to the Port of Houston via route 36 is also attractive to many businesses. Texas State Technical College has opened their doors for students and will only continue to grow. The City is proud of their new college campus.
OCuSOFT ® is projected to bring in revenues of over 42 million in 2017. The company is more than pleased to share the wealth with their surrounding community through charitable donations. OCuSOFT ® is a company that not only donates monetarily to various local charities but all of their employees willingly donate their time and energy in support of various causes. It was easy to see that from its conception, the company’s mind set has always been that of giving and caring. However, as Cynthia Barratt, President/CEO, pointed out, “We weren’t always able to give monetarily. Now that we are a larger and more economically stable company, we enjoy giving back.” The company’s spirit of giving trickles down through their employees. They take care of each other. If there is a tragedy, the company takes care of their own by coming together to ensure that family is taken care of. The overwhelming sense of camaraderie and family was evident throughout the building.
OCuSOFT ® provides its employees with a food court that serves hot meals three days a week as well as a full salad bar for a donation of $6.00 per meal. The proceeds from the food court help support three annual holiday functions that the company puts on for their employees. These include a family Christmas party where every child receives a gift of their choice, an Easter celebration with huge egg hunt and a Halloween bash. During Halloween everyone gets into costume, some teams dress-up together in a theme, and the whole building is decorated. As part of the Halloween festivities, OCuSOFT ® invites local day care facilities to come
OCuSOFT ® I N T H E C O M M U N I T Y
Secret Santa for Seniors - Meals On Wheels
Light of Hope Ceremony - Child Advocates Blood Drive
Artwork in the Chilren’s Museum Artwork in the Chilren’s Museum
enjoy a huge party and collect candy in a safe environment. It is fun for everyone. The company has hosted the event for four years and this year, the children of one day care came back at Christmas. They sang carols as a thank you. The event was so special to everyone.
Rosenberg Meals on Wheels is just one of the many local organizations that OCuSOFT ® donates both time and money to. In 2016, the volunteers for Meals on Wheels needed help in finding out what the local seniors wanted for Christmas. What normally took their volunteer group three months to do, the sales group at OCuSOFT ® tackled in a week. The sales group at OCuSOFT ® called and chatted with over 900 area seniors to find out what they wanted for Christmas. Of these 900 seniors close to 400 of them had their needs met directly by employees at OCuSOFT ® . The employees weren’t asked to do this by OCuSOFT ® , they took it upon themselves to help out. Keep in mind there are only a little over 100 employees on campus. When talking about her people, Cynthia speaks with immense pride and admiration and it is easy to see why.
As a company, OCuSOFT ® wanted to have a real impact in the lives of children every day. They do this in a couple of different ways. Through the local Boys and Girls Club, OCuSOFT ® sponsors the “Kid Café.” With the Kid Café, OCuSOFT ® wanted to be able to provide these children with a hot nourishing meal. Additionally, they also chose
OCuSOFT ® Doctor’s Lounge to sponsor the new “OCuSOFT ® Art Academy” at the Fort Bend Children’s Museum located at the renovated Imperial Sugar Mill in Sugar Land. For Cynthia this sponsorship was twofold. Her late mother had been a wonderful artist and Cynthia wanted to honor her mother’s legacy while giving children a place to experience and learn about art. All of the art hanging in the OCuSOFT ® campus was created by Cynthia’s mother. If success can be measured by how a company and its people touch the lives of others, both inside their walls and in the community, then OCuSOFT ® has certainly achieved it. Their outreach and caring for people is, by far, their largest ingredient in this recipe for success.
Walking through the campus a slogan can be seen; “Every day I play like a Champion and Finish Strong.” This sentiment is evident and present in all that they do.
George Haines, Vice President of Supply Chain Operations, explained that in both the warehouse and sales call room are screens with systems in place that depict real time events as they are unfolding. The warehouse personnel are able to see how many orders are being processed, the type of order and the time it is taking for orders to be processed. Beyond that, they can see the accuracy level of each processed order and how many are going out.
In the sales room, all sales are tracked by individual, group, and type of sale and region of the country being sold. If they are down in projected sales for an hour, a special power hour can be run and as a team they can get sales back on track. These tools are not in place to pressure employees, but to assist them with their accuracy in completing their jobs. It also allows department heads to see areas of improvement more accurately and faster, rather than waiting until months end or even quarter end. With these systems in place, the company has seen improvement in productivity and job satisfaction. Caring about employees and giving them the tools they need to be successful is yet again another ingredient for continued growth throughout the whole company. v
Author’s Note; The company motto is to be Passionate about LIFE, the acronym for “Loyalty Integrity Fun Energy.” These words are embodied by every member of the team that I met. The pride they showed me, not only for their company, but for all the people that work for them was inspiring. When speaking about their products, their care and concern for the doctors and their patients and ensuring that they are always striving to improve and be a leader in this industry is a wonderful example for all to follow. Listening to the stories about the parties and celebrations and how they simply value each other and strive to get each day right. Passion about LIFE at OCuSOFT ® would be the final ingredient for their success and continued prosperity.
