Strategic Information System: Amcor Ltd Accounting Software Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Amcor Ltd, a manufacturing company specializing in packaging solutions, and its implementation of accounting software within its strategic information system. The report begins with an overview of Amcor's organizational structure, highlighting its hierarchical nature and potential operational challenges. It then delves into the company's system acquisition methods, specifically focusing on the use of SAP ERP 6.0, SAP SCM 5.0, and SAP CRM 7.0, and illustrates the sales procedures through a system flowchart. The report identifies potential control problems and fraud risks associated with the ERP system. Furthermore, it explores the development and adoption of accounting software packages, with a focus on Reval. The report also examines Amcor's current market size, competitive advantages, and existing challenges encountered by users of accounting software, culminating in recommendations for improvement. Overall, the report offers a detailed examination of Amcor Ltd's use of accounting software and its impact on the company's operations and market position.

Running head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Organization using Accounting Software in Australia
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

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Executive Summary
The main objective of this report is to give a brief outline of a company in Australia that
uses accounting software. This report discusses about a manufacturing company called Amcor
Ltd. It talks about the market size, competitive advantages and also about the accounting
software used by the company. This also talks about the organizational structure and the
loopholes in the system. This report also suggests few methodologies for overcoming the
challenges of the accounting software.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Part One...............................................................................................................................3
Current Organizational Structure.....................................................................................3
Operational problems faced by Amcor due to its Structure............................................6
System Acquisition Method of Amcor Limited..............................................................6
System Flowchart of the Sales Procedures......................................................................7
Control Problems and Different Types of Frauds that are Possible in this System.........8
Part Two...............................................................................................................................8
Development and Adoption of the Accounting Software Packages................................8
Current Market Size.........................................................................................................9
Leaders in the Market and Competitive Advantage......................................................10
Existing Challenges Encountered by Users of Accounting Software...........................11
Recommendations..........................................................................................................11
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................12
References..........................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Amcor Limited is a manufacturing company that deals in rigid plastic packaging and
producing flexible. It is an Australian based company that deals in packaging. The products of
Amcor are responsible for protecting beverages, food, medicines and personal care products. Its
headquarters is in Victoria, Australia. In the year of 1860, this company was founded. That time
it was known as Australian Paper Manufacturers. Later on it was named as Amcor in the year
1986. It is known to be the largest PET bottles producer in the world.
The main focus of this report is to discuss about the implementation of accounting
software in the Amcor Limited. It also describes the structure of the organization along with the
competitive advantages of Amcor Limited. It also talks about the accounting software that this
company uses for its operations and in order to improve its efficiency. There are several benefits
and limitations present in the current structure and software of the organization. Accounting
software can be used by this organization to carry out their job in an effective and efficient
manner.
Part One
Current Organizational Structure
Amcor is an Australian based manufacturing company (Amcor.com 2017). It has an
organizational structure that is hierarchical in nature. The top level constitute of the managing
director. Then the next level consists of the directors of several departments like finance,
operations, marketing and human resource management. Then there is the level of managers of
the various departments like marketing, personal manager, production team leaders and finance

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supervisors. The lowest level constitute of production team members, sales team and accounts
assistants. The management team is very strong and its main focus is the innovation.
Figure 1: Organizational Structure
(Source: Lunenburg 2012)
This is the general organizational structure of the company (Fan, Wong and Zhang,
2013). The detailed organizational structure is given as below.

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Figure 2: Organizational Structure
(Source: Sapinsider.wispubs.com 2017)
This diagram shows the overall hierarchical structure of the company. Its management
team is very strong and it can be also shown in terms of hierarchy as given below.
This type of structure is organized in nature and helps the organization to maintain a
stable state. All the employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities
(Sapinsider.wispubs.com 2017). They know whom to report in case of any emergency and
important issue. There are fixed rules that are to be followed in the company. The goals of the
company are clearly defined and it is very easy for Amcor to achieve its goals by following this
structure because the tasks are clear while employees are executing it.

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Operational problems faced by Amcor due to its Structure
There are several loopholes of having this organizational structure. This structure does
not allow Amcor to work in a flexible manner (CorporateSite 2017). It also creates problem in
planning for any long term goals because future is uncertain and this structure might not be
profitable in the future. This structure also acts as a barrier in case of creativity Amcor targets to
become the most innovative company in the world but this structure comes in its way. The roles
of some department become very active while there are some departments that remain idle. This
type of structure does not allow two way communications leading to communication gap (Tran
and Tian 2013). This structure leads to a cause of low team spirit. In future this might lead to
serious troubles affecting the morale of the employees.
The operational problems which they face are the less visibility in the supply chain
management of the company (Singh 2013). Another issue is the barrier in case of innovation.
There are gap in the skills of the workers. They have to think about the environment too. Their
main issue is to balance maintenance along with high productivity.
System Acquisition Method of Amcor Limited
Amcor Limited uses the Enterprise Resource Planning software. The several software
used by this company are SAP ERP 6.0, SAP SCM 5.0 and SAP CRM 7.0. These solutions help
the company to perform very well in the industry. The cost of processing sales order is reduced
and the time to calculate the selling price is also less. The cash flow is increased. The potential of
investment is increasing. The revenue of the company is increased sue to the acquisition of ERP.
The number of stock outages is less because of reliable materials. Freight costs are reduced due
to this acquisition. There is little functionality in SAP that is not present in other software. SAP
uses (Oxygen 2017). This ERP is complimented by the use of Microsoft Office word.

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System Flowchart of the Sales Procedures
The sales model in a manufacturing company is not so well developed and is inadequate
in nature. The sales process begins with determining the needs, sales teams and actions to be
taken. It starts with the customer (Gunasekaran and Spalanzani 2012). The customer first
requests for an order. The manufacturer checks whether the products are available or are feasible
for production and then sells or manufactures further products. This process is repetitive in
nature and has no such issues. In the flow chart below we get to see that the customer first places
the order and then the company approves or disapproves the order request based on certain
conditions (Hosgor, 2015). Then if the order gets approved the manufacturer plays its role. After
the products are ready it is sold to the customers.
Figure 3: System Flowchart of the Sales Procedure

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(Source: Ingram et al. 2012)
The above flow chart gives a clear idea about the sales procedure in Amcor Limited.
Control Problems and Different Types of Frauds that are Possible in this System
There are several problems associated with the present ERP system in the organization. First and
foremost implementation of this type of software is highly expensive for the company. These
types of systems are highly complex and are not under the total control of the organizations.
Several numbers of experts are required in order to maintain the ERP system. Severe training is
required for the purpose of handling this system. If the software is outdated then it can crash the
entire system leading to loss of sensitive data. There is a chance of insufficient capability of
reporting that can lead the company to an external reporting as well as loss of data control
(Christauskas and Miseviciene 2012). Any kind of delay in update can lead to vulnerabilities in
the software. In case of lack of security and compliance standards, this can lead to severe issue.
There are also several kinds of frauds that can take place along with this system. There can be
fictitious vendor that are created in the system. For these kinds of fictitious vendors there can be
fictitious bank accounts too. The signatures in the invoice can also be false misguiding the
company. The invoice distribution can be coded to a wrong account. There can be a lot of false
or fake supplier master and bank accounts without any documentation.
Part Two
Development and Adoption of the Accounting Software Packages
There are several accounting software that can be adopted like Xero, Myob and
Quickbooks. There are several issues in using traditional software like the system is not always

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up to date. Data needs to be moved from one place to another and using software keeps the data
only in one place. Access is only there in the hand of one person. It is expensive and slow at the
same time. On the other hand these cloud accounting software are very useful for the business in
terms of cost and effectiveness. It increases the efficiency of the system. The accounting
software that is used by the Amcor Limited is called Reval (Reval 2017). This is Software as a
service platform for the organization for the purpose of management of treasury and
management of risk. This software helps to manage cash and liquidity and also understand the
financial risk of a company. These are used by more than 650 companies around the world. It
provides a superior customer experience increasing the return on investment of the company. It
provides a scalable solution. It also provides global support.
Current Market Size
The graph provided below give the current market size of Amcor Limited. It shows the share
price for the last 1 year. It can be seen the performance has improved. The performance has been
fluctuating but there was a tremendous improvement around July 2017 (Amcor.com 2017).
Although the share price at present is less but the performance of the company is high.

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Figure 4: Market Size of Amcor Ltd.
(Source: Amcor.com 2017)
Leaders in the Market and Competitive Advantage
The top leaders in this industry are Georgia Pacific, Silgan Holdings Inc. along with Amcor
Limited. Silgan Holdings is one of the leading suppliers of rigid packaging of goods products. Its
annual sales and revenue in the year 2016 was reported to be 3.6 billion dollars
(Silganholdings.com 2017). This company is one of the main competitors of Amcor Limited.
Georgia pacific on the other hand is an American company that is considered to be world’s
largest manufacturer of paper. Amcor can be considered to be leader in this field with annual
revenue of 9.5 billion dollars. The competitive advantage of this company is its innovation. Its
main focus is always on customer satisfaction that has led to the tremendous growth of the

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company. Among the accounting software Reval is considered to be the market leader along with
Xero, Myob and Quickbooks.
Existing Challenges Encountered by Users of Accounting Software
There are several challenges that are involved in using the accounting software. The most
challenging issue is the lack of security because the data is present in the cloud and if it gets
hacked then it will become accessible to anyone affecting many users. The reporting service
facility of the system is very low. It also affects the efficiency of the system. Some of the
accounting software systems are not up to date that affects the productivity of the organization.
The software may not user friendly and is very difficult for all the employees of the company to
use. It can also affect the accuracy of the system. Some of the systems have inefficient and
insufficient features but are extremely expensive. These types of software do not have any bank
reconciliation features (Christauskas and Miseviciene 2012). The customer relationship
management feature is extremely poor. Sometimes the accounting software is not compatible
with their system. Technical supports are not present for the entire time. The technical support
that can be provided over the phone is very inconvenient. The access speed is also less
sometimes. This affects the productivity of the system. The organization using such software
suffers because their work has to come to a stop because of the problem of speed in the system.
These are the disadvantages associated with using the accounting software.
Recommendations
Installation of proper security policy can resolve most of the issues mentioned above. A
strong firewall can help the system to overcome most of the risks related to the security issue of
the system. This will allow only authorized users to access the system while it will disallow
unauthorized users. Network security software will help to protect the software from any type of