Operational Issues and Alternative Suggestions for Ansell Limited during COVID-19

The report provides an overview of the various operational issues that Ansell Limited faced in the time of Covid-19 along with the major decisions that it took to control the situations and problems occurring in the business in these times. The report also summarizes upon few alternative suggestions which it could implement to make the operations better and effective as compared to COVID times.

Managerial Accounting

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART A ..........................................................................................................................................3
PART B............................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The primary purpose of managerial accounting is to help the organisation in planning for
the future requirements and necessities of the business. It contains the use of the various financial
data that are incorporated together to make financial conclusions to help the business. Ansell
limited is a safety solutions expert worldwide and is reinventing the personal protection for past
125 years. The products at Ansell Limited includes surgical and examination gloves, industrial
hand protection, household gloves aiming at health and safety protection. The below report
provides an overview of the various operational issues that the company faced in the time of
Covid-19 along with the major decidions that it took to control the situtions and problems
occruing in the business in these times. The report also summarises upon few alternative
suggestions which it could implement to make the operations better and effective as compared to
COVID times.

INTRODUCTION
Managerial accounting is a form of accounting method which generates various
statements, reports, documents assisting the management in taking better decisions for the
organisation and its performances. Ansell Limited is an Australian origin organisation that is
involved in the manufacturing and production of protective industrial and medical gloves (Pelz,
2019). It manufactures, distributes, and markets preventive commodities and services which
relate to professional, occupational, and consumer health care. In this report, an assessment of
the operational issues taking place in Ansell Limited as an organisation are mentioned along with
the impact that they generate on the organisation. The report also contains a brief explanation of
the different issues that Ansell Limited faced in COVID-19 and in what ways the company
handled the respective issues. At the end of the report, several alternative suggestions are
provided that the management at Ansell limited can implement to effectively deal with the
issues.
PART A
Operational issues are the kind of problems that occur and result in making a business
less profitable as these issues deal with an effective and efficient execution of the current
processes of the business. The operational issues identified which are specific to Ansell Limited
are:
1. Capital asset changes: A capital asset is the type of an asset which is useful to a
business organisation for a period of more than one year and is nor intended to be sold by
the business in its normal course of working. A change in capital asset refers to the
change in the total value of the capital asset that is present with the business enterprise in
a respective financial period. The change in the asset may occur with the sale, purchase,
exchange, acquisition or relinquishment of the assets of the organisation. This tends to
change the amount of capital assets that is owned by the enterprise (Hiromoto, 2019).
The change in capital assets in Ansell limited occurred due to a purchase of plant and
machinery and purchase of buildings and plant under constructions. The amount of
capital asset through plant and machinery changed from US $251.5 million in 2020 to US
$294.9 million in 2021. the investments in Ansell limited increased from US $11.9

million in 2020 to US $21.9 million in year 2021. Hence there was a significant change in
the capital assets of the company even due to COVID-19.
2. Failure in assessing the new risks and costs: In the times of coronavirus pandemic,
Ansell limited as an organisation somewhere failed to assess and predict for the future
risks associated to the occurrence of the pandemic. An understanding relating to the
management of the disruptions in the operational matters created through pandemic is
necessary to generate for alternative sourcing strategies. The management at Ansell
limited should search for newer tools and technologies which can provide for better
intelligence to the business (Gunarathne, Lee and Hitigala Kaluarachchilage, 2021). For
example: Ansell limited should aim to use such risk evaluation tools that can assist the
organisation to generate such patterns which can provide assistance to indicate risks or
the opportunities in the business environment with the help of machine learning. The
reasons due to which the organisation may have failed for a proper assessment of risks
and costs associated are: lack of an adequate definition of the critical terms used in risk
assessment, absence of proper technical understanding of the organisation, process and
the risk to be assessed, lack of an executive support from the side of management for the
assessment of the risk.
PART B
Issues:
The pandemic established to be a real test for Ansell Limited of their corporate values and the
company purpose. The decisions taken by the company were primarily based upon the
management of short term crisis and also enabling the business of Ansell limited to build just
about their customers and assist the economies to rebound. The management at Ansell Limited
made rapid decisions and aimed for some immediate actions for the intent of preserving the
business operations and efficiently serve their customers, clients and the communities Issue of supply chains: COVID-19 went on to disrupt the supply chains globally in
almost every business organisation in the world. The pandemic went on to test the
resilience, ingenuity and the flexibility of the supply chain and the leaders of supply
chain businesses in the global scenario as they aimed for maintaining the crucial business
operations (Hiebl and Richter, 2018). With the pandemic emerging as a severe threat to
countries, nations and organisations globally, the disruption of the supply chains

continued to be a strong challenge for all the business enterprises in the world. As the
economies in the world begin to restart, the supply chain was crucial with the supply of
goods and services in a quick manner, with a safe and secured delivery without having
any disruptions in the supply chain. The company decided upon to manage and mitigate
the supply and the uncertainness related to it by arranging a supplier of all sizes and
forms; small, medium and large. It also decided to analyse the supply chain segment by
running simulations to predict where and when excess and shortages may occur and how
to deal with them (Tan, 2019). Issue in customer service: The failure to meet the needs and requirements of the
customers gave the results of losses in the businesses and a very low level of customer
satisfaction and confidence level. These were among the major reasons which went on to
affect the brand credibility of the company and impacted the financial results of the
business. The issues due to Covid-19 relating to the demand and the production capacity
in the whole market lead to a huge amount of dissatisfaction among the customers. Ansell
limited also took the decision to inform and make the distributors and governments aware
about maintaining high inventory levels to make sure the high consumer demands are met
properly in such immediate situations like pandemics.
 Issue of loss of key supplier: The raw materials required to be purchased for the intent of
manufacturing any product or the finished products acquired for the intent of reselling.
These issues present the organisation with the risk of any key supplier failing to provide
for the essential business supplies, leaving the company in a situation of failing to
produce due to the absence of any vital raw material or product. The company took the
decision to establish alternate and secondary suppliers for the key supplies and materials
while also applying the crisis management techniques to mitigate the risks.
Alternative Suggestions: Suggestion for issue of supply chains: The company should take a decision in the sphere
of leveraging the data to improve the visibility of the company in areas relating to
demand, supply, inventory, and financing capacity so as to maintain the supply chain and
its related ecosystems effectively (Nkundabanyanga, Muramuzi and Alinda, 2021). The
company management should also attempt to sense and prioritize any new risk or further
implications that may occur in the business which may disrupt the supply chain.

 Suggestion for issue in customer service: The company should aim to appoint for some
sound product allocation policies and customer communication programs across the
customer groups for ensuring customer satisfaction levels. Ansell limited should focus
upon effectively utilising these customer programs to generate the maximum output
benefiting the company.
 Suggestion for issue of loss of key supplier: The company should aim to ascend the
audits being performed and inspection of the third party facilities to comply with the
standards of the company. It also should aim to increase the focus on the sustainability
standards of the suppliers who are outsourced. The check on suppliers standards in
comparison to company requirements will help Ansell to regulate the availability and
presence of its key suppliers at the right time and in the right quantity needed (Pasch,
2019).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that operational issues deal with the effective
and efficient execution of current processes while the strategic issues are the one which deal with
the identification and implementation of the alternative options that may provide better results.
The report concluded upon the two operational matters of Ansell limited which were affected
due to the time of COVID-19 pandemic and how the business respectively dealt with those
matters. In the later part of the report, some of the issues which the business faced in relation to
the pandemic and their respective alternative suggestions are provided to give an overview as
how the business of Ansell limited could solve the issues.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Gunarathne, A.N., Lee, K.H. and Hitigala Kaluarachchilage, P.K., 2021. Institutional pressures,
environmental management strategy, and organizational performance: The role of
environmental management accounting. Business Strategy and the Environment, 30(2),
pp.825-839.
Hiebl, M.R. and Richter, J.F., 2018. Response rates in management accounting survey research.
Journal of Management Accounting Research, 30(2), pp.59-79.
Hiromoto, T., 2019. Restoring the relevance of management accounting. In Management Control
Theory (pp. 273-288). Routledge.
Nkundabanyanga, S.K., Muramuzi, B. and Alinda, K., 2021. Environmental management
accounting, board role performance, company characteristics and environmental
performance disclosure. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change.
Pasch, T., 2019. Organizational lifecycle and strategic management accounting. Journal of
Accounting & Organizational Change.
Pelz, M., 2019. Can management accounting be helpful for young and small companies?
Systematic review of a paradox. International Journal of Management Reviews, 21(2),
pp.256-274.
Tan, H.C., 2019. Using a structured collaborative learning approach in a case-based management
accounting course. Journal of Accounting education, 49, p.100638.