Organizational Structure and Accounting Software in Brickworks Company

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM 1
STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Student’s Name
Course
Professor’s Name
University
City (State)
Date

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM 2
Introduction
This research focuses on the organizational structure of Brickworks company and the
accounting software/ package in Australia. Brickworks is an Australia based company that
was started in 1943 during the time of great depression. It was formed by a group of brick
manufacturers located in Sydney. It was formed to ensure the local brick industry remains
viable. This company quickly grew over the years due to great technological innovations and
a strong team of managers. Brickworks is the leading brick manufacturer in Australia today.
They also produce things like roofing tiles, pavers, timber products and concrete panels.
Organizational structure is a technical term and has been defined differently by different
researchers. According to Bloisi et al. (2007, p.710) organizational structure is a creating a
group of people and tasks that are in different units so as to enhance coordination and
communication, decision-making and actions in a company. This helps the company
members realize the close connection between activities that take place within a company
hence making it easier to understand how to direct an organization efficiently.
Accounting software/ packages This refers to a type of application software that is developed
so as to perform accounting processes and services. It records and process accounting data
and helps come up with the accounting records like ledgers. It also performs functions like
payroll management and trial balances. It functions like an accounting information system.
These packages are mainly cloud-based, there provide integration of functional modules and
provide storage space.

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM 3
Literature review
The current organizational structure
The company uses the functional organizational structure. This is a structure that has been
adopted by many small companies like the manufacturing companies and hotels (Carmel and
Becker,1995). In this kind of structure, employees in one area respond to all the directors
above them. This is a very effective structure. Employees from one department, say human
resource, might be called in by another employee in another department, say finance to
handle things in their department that are related to the human resource. This kind of
structure goes a long way to reduce centralization in a company.
Brickworks limited has three major segments and they include Building products, Investment
division, and property division. All these segments are responsible for different duties but in
case there is a financial problem in the building products segments, the property division
might come in to help.
The Building product group is in charge of operations of the company’s brand products. This
includes activities from sourcing, manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, marketing, and
sales. It also concentrates on the research of the development of products.
The land and development group (property division) is in charge of the lands created and
bought by revenue created from building product business. The activities include property
trust, management of waste and the sales of land.

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM 4
Finally, the investment group is the one that takes care of making decisions, seek available
markets and business opportunities, generate projections and calculate risks. It is the branch
that makes plans and safeguards the financial reports integrity.
Brickworks has a board of directors which include:
 The managing director
 Non-executive Director, Deputy chairman
 Non-executive chairman
 3 Independent Non-executive directors
 Lead Independent Director
They all answer to the directors above them and so do the other employees.
Operational problems associated with functional organization structure
Despite this organizational structure being the most popular organizational model today, as
observed by Peters (1993), it has some operational limitations. Only the CEO or topmost
manager have the clear picture of the company’s goal. The company is divided into functions
and each function has its goals. This becomes a problem when a manager suddenly vacates
his/her position. This would leave no other qualified persons and worse it might leave no one
knowing the end goal hence the company might lose its sense of direction. The leader might
as well become so overwhelmed by all the weight of the company and the increase in
decision making if the country grows bigger. This will obviously affect his/her efficiency.
Hostility between or among departments might also be a big problem for the company. This
might come up when the goals of a function contradict with another function’s goals