Company Analysis of BORAL Limited

This report analyses the business of BORAL Limited, a multinational company that manufactures and supplies building and construction materials. It covers the foreign entry strategy, competitive dynamics, organisational structure, and knowledge management of the company.

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COMPANY ANALYSIS
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1COMPANY ANALYSIS
Introduction:
The aim of the report is to discuss the business of BORAL limited. It is a
multinational company that manufactures and supply all types of building and construction
material. This particular business organization was founded in Australia and has been
operating in the world business from 1946. This paper will analyse the business of the
multinational enterprise named BORAL limited. This paper will be analysing the foreign
entry strategy, competitive dynamics, organisational structure, and knowledge management
and innovation process of the company. BORAL Limited has been operating in the markets
of Asia, Australia and North America in a great deal.
Company details:
BORAL company has extensive operations on different parts of the world and
expanded in some of the most profitable business markets like Asia and North America. The
company has more than 16000 employees working currently in the different operating sites
the number of operating sites are more than 700 with the head quarter situated in the city of
Sydney, Australia. The revenue of BORAL Limited by 2017 is 4.39 billion AUD.
The company has three operating divisions which are BORAL Australia, USG
BORAL and BORAL North America. The Australian has concrete, quarry, asphalt, cement,
roofing, masonry, and hardwood and softwood timber operation. This particular division
supplies all the products as well as materials to the commercial and residential constructions,
roads and the engineering markets. The Asian subsidy of this particular company
manufactures and well as supplies the plasterboard based walls. Along with it, the celling
lining systems and the accessories to the countries in Asia, the Middle East and Australasia.
This division came into existence in 2014 through the process of joint venture. On the other
hand the North American subsidy of BORAL Limited came into force through the process of

2COMPANY ANALYSIS
acquisition. This organization supplies a wide range of construction materials as well as
building products. This divisions has national processing and distribution business of fly ash.
It also manufactures stone veneer, clay and cement roof tiles, light building windows and
products, concrete block for the commercial and residential markets. Along with these, the
company has started to operate with the energy assets under the name of Origin Energy. It
has also entered the oil refinery business in Australia under the name of Bitumen and Oil
Refineries Australia Limited.
Foreign entry strategy:
Market entry strategy of this multinational entity has been utilised in different ways in
different market. This is a planned distribution as well as delivery method in the new target
market. In this important and export of the services, this refers in the creation, establishments
and the management of the contracts in foreign countries. The factors which affects the
viability of the companies in the new foreign market are the brand awareness, increased sales
and business stability if the company enters the new market. For developing the market entry
strategy, analysis of the market through the analysis of the potential competitors are essentials
and so also the preferences of the customers in that market. The relevant factors BORAL
Limited had analysed while entering the market of Asia or North America led to the analysis
of the potential competitors, trade barriers, price location, localised knowledge, competition
and the export subsidies.
In the case of BORAL limited as mentioned before, the business took different pat for
entering two new markets. In this regard. The large MNE not only entered on country but the
entire continent. The investment ratio was so huge that the company had captures the market
of entire Asia, Australasia and the Middle East through the process of joint venture. Now
joint venture is a business entity that is created by two or more parties characterised by the

3COMPANY ANALYSIS
shared ownership, risks and returns. In this case, BORAL Gypsum and USG Corporation had
formed a 50/50 joint venture to gain leverage of fame of iconic brand, technological expertise
and complementary geographic foot prints. In this regard, BORAL limited had contributed its
gypsum division to the joint venture that includes the later board operations in the markers of
Australasia. USG on the other hand is the largest manufacturer of plasterboard in the North
American region contributed to the Asian as well as Middle Easter business and executive
access to the world leading cement board, lightweight plasterboard, fibre board and the joint
compound building technologies in their joint venture territory. Though this particular joint
venture, the companies have brought together their game changing technological aids and
expertise of the companies like USG with Boral’s leading manufacturing and distribution
network in regions. His joint venture had provided the companies scope for improving the
products and services to the unparalleled match.
In the region of North America, BORAL had contracture materials business in Denver
and entered into a joint venture with Fonterra Brick. This joint venture has been termed as
Meridian Brick. This joint venture between BORAL Bricks and Forterra Bricks aimed to
serve both the Canadian as well as the US market. This joint venture serving in the countries
in the North American region has built the companies through wider range of high quality
products, solutions and services thus serving the larger network. This has expanded the
residential and commercial brick offerings through the formation of the greater and more
responsible plant networks. As the result of the improved utilisation of the distribution and
frights channels, this is expected that this Meridian Brick will serve better positioned for
meeting the needs of evolving market.
This strong competition in the construction industry of the countries in Asia, Australia
and North America has affected the customer base of BORAL Limited in a great deal. In the
respect, the company has gained the scope for discovering the competition to affect the

4COMPANY ANALYSIS
business in respect to the supply and demand relationship. This in one hand is essential for
the growth of the companies in the market where they can understand the weaker areas to
lose ground. According to this company competition is important because this provides
reassurance, enhances online presence, helps the customers to identify the company, builds
loyalty, allow market research and teaches new skills. The competition enables the company
to understand the products that BORAL Limited provides are not already using the products
and the trend is continuing. This also reveals the strengths of the company which will be
utilised for standing out of the competition in the industry.
The more the competition puts pressure on the companies, the more BORAL Limited
learns to utilise different tools. This enhances the online presence of the company and make
the customers see the company’s products in different ways. This enables the companies to
stay in the upper level of visibility in the marketing process. The company takes the
advantage of competition where the competitors help the company to enable the customers
move quickly assimilate the information about BORAL.
While analysing the problems with the competitors, the company gets the scope for
effective market research by gathering the customer’s base of the competitors, their
preferences and their buying capacity which in turn helps the company to make new
strategies. Finally the teaching of the new skills from the competitor can help the company to
enhance capabilities and solve may a problems.
Competitive Dynamics:
As the company like Boral has been operating in the markets of Asia, Australia and
North America in a great deal, there are a wide number of competitors present to create threat
for this company. The most important of all the competitors of BORAL Limited is CalSatr
Products. The revenue of CalSatr Products is $ 9.5 million in comparison to BORAL Limited

5COMPANY ANALYSIS
by 2017 is 4.39 billion AUD (Boral.com.au 2019). This is a private company situated in
Racin, Winconsin in 2010. This particular competition of BORAL Limited operates in the
hymen improvement retail industry. There are more or less similar number of employees like
BORAL Limited.
Icopal is another top competitor of BORAL Limited which is situated in the area of
Herlev of New Zealand. The company has been operating from 1876 and operates in the
market to provide consumer goods industry. The company generates 0.10% the revenue of
BORAL Limited. The company named James Hardie has been perceived to be the biggest
rival of BORAL Limited. This company has been performing in the construction material
company before the BORAL Limited had been established even. However, this particular
competitor has generated less revenue than BORAL Limited.
Triangle Brick Company is another competitor of BORAL Limited that serves in the
East Coast, in the Midwest and the southern part of Texas. This company provides services
and products in the 30 states throughout the US. Similarly, the company like General Shale,
GAF, PlyGem and Head Waters are some of the competitors of BORAL Limited.
Organisational structure:
The organisational structure is the system which outlines the process show certain
activities to be directed for achieving the goals in the organization. These activities include
rule, responsibilities and roles. The organisational structure however determines the method
of the flow of the information between the levels of the companies. The centralised structure
the information flow down from the top to down but in the decentralised structure, the
decision making power have been distributed among different levels of the organization.
The organisational structure in BORAL Limited is hierarchical and centralise where
the CEO occupies the top most position of the company. After the CEO, there come the chief

6COMPANY ANALYSIS
financial officer, chief technology officer. Under this layer there come the senior vice
president for the Asia Pacific Region, senior vice president for the strategy and business
development, senior vice president for general counsel, senior vice president for Human
Resource, senior vice president for the marketing and sales executive, and finally senior vice
president for Asia.
This particular company has a bureaucratic organisational structure that helps the
management to break up the company based on the specialisation of its workforce. Most of
the works of this company are focussed to produce different types of products, therefore, it is
divided into departments like sales, marketing and operations. The company has different
divisional and multidivisional structure that guides the company to use the method if
leadership teams based on the products and subsidiaries that operate. The organisational
structure of BORAL Limited helps the company to direct the management to achieve the
goals. It is a successful organisational structure defines the jobs of the employees starting
from the higher level to the lower ones. This also fits the employees of the organization into
the structure in a proper way (Horch 2018).
The organisational structure of BORAL Limited relates to the divisional characters as
it operates across the several horizontal objectives. This type of organisational structure
allows more power to the teams and more autonomy among the groups within the work place.
As the company has stone segments and offerings like veneer, clay and cement roof tiles,
light building windows and products, concrete, quarry, asphalt, cement, roofing, masonry,
hardwood and softwood timber, the divisional structure essential help the company to operate
successfully in the different parts of the world. This enables the company to control the
resources of the company and spend money for the certain projects effectively in different
aspects of the division.

7COMPANY ANALYSIS
In addition to this, the hierarchical divisional organisational structure of the company
has effectively helped the management to create the division geographically (Maduenyi et al.
2015). As the company has different subsidiaries in the different continents of the world like
Australasia, Asia and North America, therefore this type of organisational structure offers
greater flexibility with many divisions and allow each one of the parts operate effectively.
This structure of the organization allows in such transparency that one of two people
reporting it the chief executive of the parent company or the upper management staff
(Maduenyi et al. 2015). Having a divisional structure, the decision making process is much
more easy. Not every one of the programs are to be approved by the upper levels but the
question are answered by the divisional level of the company.
Knowledge Management:
Like any construction companies, the learning and knowledge management procedure
takes the needs of the employees into consideration. This is due to the fact that the more the
employees will be learning, the more they can enhance their skills to contribute to the growth
of the company. In the case of BORAL Limited, the company uses different method of
learning and knowledge management so that it can create a pool of knowledgeable
workforce, utilise it properly and retain the staffs for the transferring of the knowledge to the
different batches of the workplace (Duffield and Whitty 2015). For this company the learning
and knowledge management includes the process of increasing production abilities and
problem solving.
The chief aim of this company is to maintain a great connection among the employees
so that the knowledge is properly transfer to the other new employees. It is one of the most
important factor for sustaining the competitive business scenario of the countries where
BORAL operates. For the construction business, the knowledge of the technology is

8COMPANY ANALYSIS
increasing where the use of new machinery for increasing production is needed. The more the
employees are knowledgeable, the more the company gets the competitive advantage
(Matthews, MacCarthy and Braziotis 2017). The knowledge management is a set of
organisational activities which improve the knowledge of the workforce for handing new
information of the constantly changing business scenario. This is effective for new
knowledge creation, storage, transfer, acquisition, refinement, sharing and proper utilization
or the resources. These management of knowledge can support the organizational processes
that involves individual learning, for the process of innovation and collective learning. The
ore knowledge is managed, the more the company gets the cope for collaborative decision
making that leads to elimination of the discrimination problems or any types of conflicts
within the organization.
The company arranges for the training for the ground level employees so that they
keep on learning about the new technologies in the construction business. This enhances
efficiency of the company to remain one step ahead in the competition. From the
management level, the communication process becomes imposing of the new policies so that
the trainings remain work oriented ad the employee needs oriented. This empowers the
ground level employees of BORAL Limited in one hand and motivate them to stay in the
same company for long.
Along with the training process, the company allows the employees to take part on the
seminars where they get an effective amalgamation of the theoretical knowledge as well as of
the practical ones. This is not only the knowledge of the new technologies but also the
knowledge of the cultural diversity. The employees face issues when the company enters a
new market for business. The national culture of these new markets effectively impact on the
operation of the organisational culture. This enhances diversity in the workplace when the
local employees enter the business but also create scope for conflicts. Therefore, the company

9COMPANY ANALYSIS
Process
Content
PracticeTheory
Organizational
Learning
The learning
Organization
Organizational
Knowledge
Knowledge
Management
arranges for workshops and group discussions so that the knowledge of the cultural process
are spread well in the organization. Thus knowledge management does not create scope for
bottle neck situation where the managers possess more knowledge and employees do not.
Figure 1. Organisational learning and knowledge management
(Source: created by the author)
Innovation:
In the case of BORAL Limited, the innovation is essential because the changes in the
technology is constantly taking place in the construction business. Now the investment of this
company in the research and development segment has been increased. This enables the
company to grow market share and profits through product and service innovation. The

10COMPANY ANALYSIS
innovation process of the company directly leads to the product improvement. It has also
been the process of a disruptive innovation approach which enables the R&D department of
the company to view the issues from different points of view and being changes in the
production process of the offerings of the company. It provides new ideas that enables the
company to see the problems of the production or markets needs to see through the jobs to be
done lenses to achieve the best growth (Young and Ghoshal 2016).
In the innovation process the company mainly takes helps of the market analysis
process is that the needs of the market can be understood properly and how the customers are
trying to achieve their customisable products for their residential and commercial
construction buildings (Tidd and Bessant 2018). After analysis of the market, the company
then discuss what the customers consider between 50 and 150 metrics while assessing the
capability of the products and the services of the company. It sis the outcome driven
innovation process that helps the company to judge the power behind the innovation process.
Through analytical, quantitative and qualities methods of ODI process provide the insights of
the need of innovation of the machines to be more proficient. The need for the quality of the
products need research so that the company can effectively issue investment in the process.
The more the company uses innovative methods for production, the more it gains competitive
advantage.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that there are a wide number of competitors present to
create threat for this company. The organisational structure of BORAL Limited relates to the
divisional characters as it operates across the several horizontal objectives. The company
arranges for the training for the ground level employees so that they keep on learning about
the new technologies in the construction business. The employees face issues when the

11COMPANY ANALYSIS
company enters a new market for business. The more the competition puts pressure on the
companies, the more BORAL Limited learns to utilise different tools and innovation process.
It has also been the process of a disruptive innovation approach which enables the R&D
department of the company to view the issues from different points of view and being
changes in the production process of the offerings of the company.

12COMPANY ANALYSIS
References:
Boral.com.au (2019). Boral Locations | Boral. [online] Boral.com.au. Available at:
https://www.boral.com.au/locations [Accessed 17 Sep. 2019].
Duffield, S. and Whitty, S.J., 2015. Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model
for organisational learning through projects. International journal of project
management, 33(2), pp.311-324.
Horch, H.D., 2018. The intermediary organisational structure of voluntary
associations. Voluntary Sector Review, 9(1), pp.55-72.
Maduenyi, S., Oke, A.O., Fadeyi, O. and Ajagbe, A.M., 2015. Impact of organisational
structure on organisational performance.
Matthews, R.L., MacCarthy, B.L. and Braziotis, C., 2017. Organisational learning in SMEs: a
process improvement perspective. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, 37(7), pp.970-1006.
Tidd, J. and Bessant, J.R., 2018. Managing innovation: integrating technological, market
and organizational change. John Wiley & Sons.
Young, C. and Ghoshal, S., 2016. Organization theory and the multinational corporation.
Springer.