Strategic Information System: A Case Study of Amcor

This report examines the strategic information system of Amcor, an Australian multinational packaging company. It analyzes the company's divisional organizational structure, identifies operational problems, and explores the most suitable system acquisition method. The report also includes a system flowchart of the sales procedure, identifies potential control problems and frauds, and discusses the development and adaptation of accounting software packages. Finally, it analyzes the current market size, identifies market leaders, and explores challenges faced by users of accounting software.

Strategic Information System
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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Part 1...........................................................................................................................................................4
Question1: The current organisational structure of the organisation........................................................4
Question 2: What operational problems do you think the organisation could experience?......................6
Question 3: What is the most likely system acquisition method- commercial software, custom software
or ERP?...................................................................................................................................................7
Question 4: Prepare a system flow chart of the sales procedure..............................................................8
Question 5: Identify any control problem and the fraud which are possible in the system?..................10
Part 2.........................................................................................................................................................11
Question 1: Development and adaptation of the accounting software packages....................................11
Question 2: The current market size......................................................................................................12
Question 3: Identify the leaders in the market and what gives them the competitive advantages..........13
Question 4: Identify the current gaps or challenges encountered by users or customers of accounting
software and make relevant suggestions or recommendation................................................................14
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................15
References.................................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
This unit is about the strategic information system which tells about the structure of the business.
The selected organisation is Amcor which is an Australian based multinational packaging
company. This is the public company which produces the flexible packaging for the healthcare,
food, tobacco and beverage industries (Boden, 2017.). The headquarters of the company in
Switzerland, the company also includes various international stock markets. The Amcor
Company was formed in 1986 when the Australian paper manufacturers are renamed. In this unit
tells about the operational problems, the acquisition method used by the company. The sales
procedure of the business and fraud can be possible in this system are discussed.
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Part 1
Question1: The current organisational structure of the organisation
The structure of Amcor is divisional organisational structure. This structure organizes the
activities around the product, geographical, market service of the business. This structure is
useful when the organisation has many markets, regions, products. When the decision making
has to be clustered to react more quickly at divisional level to local markets at that time this
approach is very useful (Maduenyi, et. al., 2015). The company organized divisional line; each
divisional line contains a complete set of the functions. The all-division handles its own sales and
marketing, accounting activities, production. This type of organisational structure tends to
increase the flexibility and this type of structure can also be broken down into further divisions
such as market, product, and geographic structure. In this type of organisational structure, the
groups are configurated together of those employees who are responsible for the particular
market, the product according to the workflow.
Types of divisional organisational structure
 Commercial division- This type of division focuses on the commercial customers and
these have their own product development, accounting, sales employees, production.
 Retail division- This type of division focuses on the retailer customers in the UK and
they have their own production, sales employees, accounting and product development.
 International division- This type of division focuses on the retailer customers which are
outside the UK and this division shares the production facility and the product
development with the retail division, they have their own sales employees and accounting
department.
Advantages of the divisional organisation:
 Competition
 Accountability
 Culture
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Disadvantages of Divisional structure
 Inefficiencies
 Cost
 Rivalries
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Question 2: What operational problems do you think the organisation could experience?
There are many problems which are faced by the organisation for running the business. Some of
the problems which are faced by the business:
 Partnering and alliance: The partnering is the most important for those who provide the
services to remain in a competitive culture in today's time. There are many forms need by
the partnering which is used to share the things such as resources, information, equity,
funding and so forth.
 Sales and marketing: The marketing and selling the product in the open market can be a
little tough task for the service provider (Wheelen, et. al., 2017). When the needs of the
customer segment are accessed then the service provider needs to think about the services
which they have to offer to the customers. Marketing and sales are the critical area for
any of the service provider and especially in such competitive environment. The service
providers use many of the force which comes under the headings of direct and indirect.
 Service delivery: The delivery of the service is the infrastructure and processes of the
service provider which is needed to deliver the service either to the group of people,
enterprise or to the individual.
 Customer care: The most important relation in the service provider business is the
relation with the customers and the differentiator in the market. For the successful
businessman, the service providers must create the single view of the customers which is
available as the streamline sales and the customers support functions.
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Question 3: What is the most likely system acquisition method- commercial software,
custom software or ERP?
There are many different types of work which an organisation comes through and for this the
business needs strong software which helps the business in avoiding any kind of inefficiency in
the business. The word ERP means Enterprise resource planning (Nour, and Mouakket, 2013).
The ERP system provides the relevant information on the time to the relevant departments of the
business. The ERP system mostly used the context of the system. ERP is the system which is
used by the company to manage, coordinate and integrate the entire important task and the parts
of the company. ERP provides the view of updated core of business process by using common
database which is maintained by the database management system (DBMS). The ERP system
provides the flow of the information among all the functions of the business and it also manages
the connections to all the stakeholders outside the firm.
This is the system which tracks the resources of the business such as the raw materials, cash, and
capacities of the production and the status of commitments of the business such as payroll,
orders, sales order, and purchase order (Neelima, and Padma, 2014). The ERP system runs on the
different network configuration and computer hardware which uses the database as an
information repository. In early times the ERP system mostly focused on the larger enterprise
and on the small business to increase the use of the ERP systems. The applications of ERP are of
lightweight business management software which is often customized for the specific type of
business.
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Question 4: Prepare a system flow chart of the sales procedure.
The system flow chart of the sales proceeds of the Amcor is:
Assumptions
 The company must have an ERP system
 The company must follow the strategy which is "make to order".
The flow chart of the sales procedure in the Amcor:-
Source (The sales coaching institute, 2015)
1. The purchase order of customer input in ERP system: Once the sales department gets
the purchase order from the customer then they verify the prices, specify the product
according to the agreement done with the customers. The details are entered in the ERP
software then the planning is done by the production department how and in what
quantity the product has to be made. If anything gets wrong at the time of doing input
then the right material will not be procured and the manufacturing of the finished goods
will not able to process and the dispatched of the produced will not happen then will
worsen the relationship with the customers.
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2. MRP: The planning is done on the basis of the customer's order of purchase which was
entered in the ERP system (Harmon, 2014). According to that, it is identified that which
material is required and then the quantity of the raw material is calculated after the
consideration of the raw material.
3. A release of purchase orders on vendors: The department of procurement sends the
request for the Quotation to the vendors then negotiation is done with the vendors and
then the best offers are identified and the purchase order are placed.
4. Raw material received in a factory: This is the very important process for the company
and the quality of raw material is checked, this process is not followed strictly and the
raw material brings to the factory and hampers on the quality of the finished goods.
5. Manufacturing: The product is manufactured according to the needs of the customers
and it also important to manufacture the product on time when it is needed.
6. Dispatch: When the goods are manufactured then they are ready to dispatch but first they
are inspected and packed and then they dispatched.
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Question 5: Identify any control problem and the fraud which are possible in the system?
The frauds which can happen in the manufacturing organisations are:
 Frauds in the quality of the products: The fraud in the product quality involves the use
of the substandard material in the production and in the assembling of finished goods in
the manufacturing. Many of the times the internal quality of the manufacturer is not able
to detect and the poor quality material can defect after the completion of the
manufacturing. The frauds can include avoiding the record which meets certain test
requirement, purchasing of a poor quality of goods from the vendor.
 Inventory frauds: This type of fraud can involve the theft of material of the company.
The perpetrator hides the theft by falsifying up the computer records, the inventory fraud
on the regular counting of the product, strong inventory record keeping and organized
warehouse.
 Financial statement fraud: This is the most common fraud which happens in the
business can be the most damage full for the business. This includes overstating of
revenue, assets and earning.
 Skimming of the cash: This type of fraud happens in most of the firms, it is the
misappropriation consists of taking up the cash before it can be recorded in the
accounting system of the business. The common examples of the asset misappropriation
are payroll schemes; check tampering, duplicate expenses reimbursement schemes, fake
billing schemes etc.
 Misuse of the company assets: This fraud is not only the problematic fraud even it is the
unauthorized use of the assets of the business and it can put the business in some of the
significant liability.
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Part 2
Question 1: Development and adaptation of the accounting software packages
The software process and records the transactions of the accounting in the functional module
such as general ledger, account receivable, trial balance, accounts payable and payroll as it is the
application software. The accounting software is online based as it can be accessed at any of the
time with any device which has internet facility; this software varies greatly in the cost and its
complexity (Griffiths, 2015). The accounting software is user-friendly software which allows
employees to learn fast and adapt it fastly. The accounting software which is used in the business
depends on the size of the business, different departments of the business and number of users of
the software. The accounting software records all the data in the very systematic way. The
accounting may include the diverse and systematic measurements, verification, classification,
interpretation, and summation of the financial information.
There are many types of software which are available on the market for recording the data of the
organisation but sometimes they don't work so well according to the business (Bishop, 2018).
The best software for the Amcor is the ERP which helps in supporting all the records and the
transactions of the Amcor Company and helps in reducing the errors of the financial transactions
of the company. The ERP software is mostly used by the organisation because the complex
procedure of business can’t manage and afford with other software and other software was not so
helpful in satisfying the needs of the users.
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Question 2: The current market size
With the changing of time the advancement and the development of the technology is increasing
and every business is adapting the new technology from time to time. It is very important for the
small firms to organize their own accounting system (Dubois, and Seabright, 2015). So the
current market size of the company total funding is $ 13.3 Billion and the total revenue per year
is $6.2, this industry is of packaging. The main competitors of the Amcor are Bemis whose total
revenue per year is $4.1Billion.
Now all the business is adapting the ERP system as the big industries can’t depend on the small
software, the all big companies prefer the software such as SA, Oracle. These all are the best
ERP software developer. The software ERP is of light weight and integrates all the operations of
the business.
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Question 3: Identify the leaders in the market and what gives them the competitive
advantages.
ERP software and the accounting software's leaders in the market are Oracle and the SAP which
are used by the big organisations. The Amcor is the large industry which has the complex
organisational structure and needs the software for the accounting which is flexible and user-
friendly, this software helps the employees to understand and learn the software easily. NetSuite
is the best and is the complete software for the ERP, this is the popular software and helps the
employees to alter the field and this software is flexible in nature (Weller, et. al., 2015). The
software helps in providing the opportunity to delete and add the data when it is required by the
business. The benefit of this software is that it collaborate the information to the application from
different entities and also evaluate the decision making the performance. The small and the
medium business use the QuickBooks and the MYOB for the operational need of the small
business which can’t be managed and afford in the Oracle. The ERP software is not the
traditional software; the alteration can be done by the employees or the administration and the IT
person. The software NetSuite is very good and easy for the organisation, as it helps in doing the
online shopping.
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Question 4: Identify the current gaps or challenges encountered by users or customers of
accounting software and make relevant suggestions or recommendation.
The gaps which come in this type of organisation is when the customer does the online shopping
then many of the times the website show the different prices of the same product, and the
customer want is able to identify which he has to choose. Many of the times at the time of online
shopping the product is not able to deliver at the time because of the weather sometimes and
sometimes of the delivery company (Piller, et. al., 2015). At the time of shopping many times,
the product gets defected and the company doesn’t replace the product on time.
When purchasing from the retailer, the retailer shows the product in which he has more margin
and profit. And many of the times they don't behave properly with the customers.
Recommendations:
The Amcor is the big company which needs the flexible and the powerful software for
accounting and recording the data. The best software for such business is Oracle which fulfills all
the requirements of the business in the single application. The Amcor business requirements are
complex which can’t be fulfilled by the QuickBooks.
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Conclusion
This is to conclude that it is the information system which tells about the Amcor Company of
Australia which is a multinational packaging company. In this report, it has described the
structure of the company in which the company is working. After that, the operational problems
which the company is facing, with that the accounting system the company is using is ERP
which the complex system but very helpful for the organisation. The flowchart of sales
productivity of the company is discussed and the problems and the frauds which can occur in the
organisation. The adaptation of the accounting software and the current market size of the
business are given. Moreover, the leaders in that market are discussed and the competitive
advantages in the market and the challenges faced by the users in accounting software are
discussed.
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References
 Bishop, W.A., 2018. A project management framework for small-and medium-sized
entities: Accounting software implementation. Journal of Economic and Financial
Sciences.
 Boden, D., 2017. AMCOR-lessons from the development plan process. Planning
News, 43(1), p.28.
 Dubois, P., and Seabright, P., 2015. Market size and pharmaceutical innovation.
 Griffiths, A., 2015. The role of accounting in supporting adaptation to climate change
 Harmon, P., 2014. Business process change. Morgan Kaufmann.
 Maduenyi, S., Oke, A.O., Fadeyi, O. and Ajagbe, A.M., 2015. Impact of Organisational
Structure on Organisational Performance.
 Neelima, M.L. and Padma, M., 2014. A study on cloud storage. International Journal of
Computer Science and Mobile Computing
 Nour, M.A. and Mouakket, S., 2013. A classification framework of critical success
factors for ERP systems implementation: A multi-stakeholder perspective.
 Piller, F.T., Weller, C. and Kleer, R., 2015. Business models with additive manufacturing
—opportunities and challenges from the perspective of economics and management.
In Advances in Production Technology (pp. 39-48). Springer, Cham.
 The sales coaching institute, 2015. Structures sales process model [Online]. Structure
sales process model Available at: https://www.salescoach.us/sales-process-model-
example/ [Accessed on 10 may 2018].
 Wheelen, T.L., Hunger, J.D., Hoffman, A.N. and Bamford, C.E., 2017. Strategic
management and business policy. pearson.
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