Overview Of Cochlear Implants Organization And Hearing Implants Industry In Australia

Select an organisation with offices in Australia and research the organisation in order to compile a comprehensive report that outlines the following:

1. What the organisation does and a brief history
2. What industry it is in and what are thespecific characteristics of this industry
3. How the organisation is performing (financially, or in terms of market share, reputation)
4. How does the organisation manage its communications
5. How the organisation is perceived publicly

Introduction to Cochlear Implants Organization

As we have discussed in the executive summary, Cochlear organization is in the business of manufacturing, designing and supplying of hearing implants device or hearing aids for the people that are suffering from the hearing issues (Rodriguez, 2017). The Cochlear organization (Australia) was incorporated in the year 1981 with it’s headquarter set up in Sydney Australia. Now if we discuss the types of the hearing implanting devices produced by the organization then these are; The Nucleus Cochlear Implant, the Hybrid Electro-Acoustic Implant and the Baha Bone Conduction Plant. Cochlear organization is an organization that is into the field of manufacturing, designing and supplying or selling of hearing aid devices in Australia and other countries as well. In the year 2002 and 2003 the organization won award for being the most innovative organization of Australia.

Here in this overview, we are going to discuss about the organization’s working and the products or service that Cochlear Australia is producing or manufacturing. The Cochlear organization is into the business of manufacturing three hearing aids that we will discuss in the below paragraphs. We will discuss all the devices in a little bit of detail below:

1. The Nucleus cochlear implant this device was invented or we can say founded by Dr. Graeme Clark(M.Clark, 2014). This device has received lots and lots of appreciation from all around the world because of its path breaking functions, the device was approved by the United States Food & Drug Administration. This device was founded in Melbourne but it has descendent called the original Nucleus. However even being a descendent of another device Nucleus managed to create a stand of its own in the market. This device is placed behind the ears of the people suffering from hearing problems; an electrode is present in this device that captures all the sounds into the device and sends it to the brain. Recently, Nucleus 6 came into the market in the year 2013.
2. Now coming to the second device which is the Hybrid Electro-Acoustic device, it won’t be wrong to call the smaller version of the Nucleus Cochlear implant, not because of its lesser features or anything but because of its size and this device is only designed for the people’s who have hearing issues at low frequencies. So this device amplifies the lower sounds and sends them to brain through the normal pathway of sound in a human body(Rousset, 2016).
3. Now discussing the working and designs of the third device called ‘Baha Bone Conduction’ it is also a small device that is implanted behind the ear bone. This device captures the sound in the surroundings of the people and transmits it to the brain by putting these sounds in the inner part of the ear and rest is done by the human machinery automatically. Originally this device was not created by the Cochlear but by a Swedish Medical organization but in the year 2005, the Cochlear Medical organization acquired this company and finally this device is now sell under Cochlear’s name.

Here in this part of the report, we are going to discuss about the whole industry of hearing implants of Australia. The main purpose of discussing the industrial overview is to get a fair idea of the performance of the Cochlear Implants organization. This section will not only  cover some other major organizations of this field but will also cover the total revenue of this industry and in addition to this what challenges does an organization of hearing industry has to face in order to be successful. The hearing industry of Australia is as near as an industry of 25 billion US dollars. While this industry is having super annual revenues by selling their devices, the commonwealth Australian government has to bear an annual loss of around 12 billion US dollars as it has to provide the hearing aid devices to the sufferers under the commonwealth scheme (Staff, 2016). A recent survey was conducted in Australia and the results were really shocking that out of 5 peoples in Australia 1 is knowingly or unknowingly suffering hearing issues and what could be more worse than this fact that this number of 5 will decrease to 4 by the year 2050.

Now after studying the hearing market in detail, few of the information we will present here, there are several hearing aid devices in the market such as; BTE, ITE, RITE, Cochlear Implants, OTC amplifiers etc. The market share of BTE, ITE & RITE including IIC is the largest amongst all i.e. 4 billion US dollars but the growth of this product is stable at one point. The Cochlear implants on the other hand have a market share of 1 billion US dollar alone and its growth is shown on a very strong scale. However the OTC amplifiers does not have much of the a bigger or lesser share but it is way less than others i.e. only 50 million US dollars and it shows a good sign of growth in the market. The Australian market see an annual sale of around 12-14 million units in the market. The annual global revenue is around 5 billion US dollars. The annual growth of this industry is nearly 4-5%, most of the revenue of the organizations under this industry is derived by the countries listed in OECD list. If we see trends of the hearing implants usage in the international market then it is really showing an upward trend which implies that the growth rate of this industry is well beyond expectations as the survey Conducted by the Australian government itself has mentioned that the number of people suffering from hearing aid will increase by the year 2050, which simply means that the market share and the growth chances of these organizations also increases. It won’t be wrong to call that the growth chances in this industry is also faces some challenges such as (Pisoni, 2016); these organization does not reach to customers timely, well it is not the fault of the hearing aid implants organization’s but the customer itself who takes a long time to admit the reality that he/she is suffering from hearing condition. This industry if we see globally is not a large but a very small industry that does not holds much of the power to influence market (Cowan, 2017). Hence these were the challenges faced by this industry.

Products and Services of Cochlear Implants Organization

The Cochlear Implants incorporated their business in the year 1981 and since the company never looked back as they kept on working on newer technology to bring revolution in the hearing aid industry and their continuous effort made it possible to achieve the award for being the most innovative organization of Australia in the year 2002 & 2003. The organization device Hybrid Acoustic received Australian Engineering & International Design award in the year 2009. The Organization of Cochlear holds around the two third share of the world’s hearing aid market, which is way bigger than many of the other firms revenue scale (Mudry & Mills, 2017).

The company has various managers who are responsible for communicating the work flow with its consumers and the global work team. It has a successful high level communication skill driven taskforce who are responsible in working in conjunction with the company for carrying on their roles in an efficient manner.

There is no need to discuss this section because all the above facts and information are enough to tell the public perception of this organization. However we will still discuss, The Cochlear hearing aid organization holds a two third of the total market of hearing aid industry in the world. The annual revenue of this organization is around 1.5 Billion US dollars which is more than most of the other firms even when combined together. If we study the official website of Cochlear Australia then there is a section which shows the experiences and stories of the customers of Cochlear Implants. One of the customer has registered their feedback as, ‘It is a miracle for me, I never thought my hearing capability will increase to this much better, Cochlear is truly a magic that has transformed my life and has given a new meaning to my life’. Now, one can imagine the public perception of the Cochlear organization in Australia and around the world (Fonseca, 2017).   

Conclusion 

After going through all the information and the facts about the Cochlear organization, a detailed but a brief conclusion has been provided here to present a final statement about the Cochlear Implants organization. The Cochlear organization being the holder of the 2/3^rd of the total market share of the hearing aid market has not reached to this position by their malpractices or by their dominance but by their hard work and their dedication plus commitment for their clients to give them meaningful hearing aids relatively at reasonable prices. If we put an eye on the prices of the devices produced by the Cochlear organization then they are well reasonable and can be afford by a normal earnings person as well. The main purpose of Cochlear organization is to provide meaningful products to the people suffering from hearing issues at good prices and adding sound to their soundless lives.

Cochlear, T., 2018. Cochlear. [Online] Available at: https://www.cochlear.com [Accessed 15 September 2018].

Cowan, R., 2017. Challenges of Hearing Aid Organization in Australia. Journals of Human Health, 41(03), p.20.

Fonseca, T., 2017. Personal Stories of Cochlear. [Online] Available at: https://www.cochlear.com/au/home/connect [Accessed 15 September 2018].

M.Clark, G., 2014. The multi-channel cochlear implant: Multi-disciplinary development of electrical stimulation of the cochlea and the resulting clinical benefit. ElseVier Journals, 5(120), p.25.

Markley, A., 2016. Cochlear Named, the Most Innovative Organization. The Journals of Engineering, 30(5), p.45.

Mudry, A. & Mills, 2017. "The Early History of the Cochlear Implant. Head & Neck Surgery Journals, 12(20), p.46.

Pisoni, D.B., 2016. Challenges for Future Research on Cochlear Implants. Journal of Otorhinolaryngology , 12(300), p.50.

Rodriguez, M.K., 2017. Hear Your Life. The Journals of Science, 2(10), p.13.

Rousset, S., 2016. "Factors Affecting Auditory Performance of Postlinguistically Deaf Adults Using Cochlear Implants. Journals of Audiology and Neurotology, 4(50), p.20.

Staff, C., 2016. The Cochlear Implant Controversy. Journals of CBS, 2(30), p.40