Analysis of Business Information and Strategies: BHP Billiton Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of BHP Billiton, a prominent mining company. It explores the company's strategies, organizational structure, and operational challenges, including fluctuating market prices, currency exchange rate impacts, and changing financial policies. The report also examines the company's system acquisition methods, sales operations, and system vulnerabilities, especially in light of cyber threats. Furthermore, it discusses the accounting software packages used, focusing on XBRL, its features, and its role in financial reporting. The report also covers BHP Billiton's market size, its leaders, and the gaps and challenges the company faces in the competitive global market, including the increasing costs associated with accounting software packages. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and insights into BHP Billiton's business operations and strategies.

Running head: BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Business information and strategies
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Executive strategy
The following report discusses about the strategies of a mining industry. The company chosen
here is the BHP Billiton. The chosen country is Australia. The strategies and market share of the
company is discussed in this report. The problems in the accounting software packages are also
addressed here in this report.

2BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Discussion:.......................................................................................................................................3
Part 1:...........................................................................................................................................3
Structure of organization:............................................................................................................3
Problems in operation:.............................................................................................................4
System acquisition method:.....................................................................................................5
Sales operation of the company:..............................................................................................6
Vulnerabilities in the system:..................................................................................................7
Task 2:.........................................................................................................................................8
Accounting software packages:...............................................................................................8
Market size:.............................................................................................................................9
Leaders in the market:...........................................................................................................10
Gaps and challenges:.............................................................................................................11
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................12
References:....................................................................................................................................13
Bibliography:.................................................................................................................................16

3BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Introduction:
BHP is an entity made for trading for BHP Limited and BHP Billiton plc. An Anglo-
Australian multinational company is involved in mining of metals and petroleum. The company
has its headquarters in Melbourne. It was founded in 1885 and by the year 2015, it was the
largest mining company of the world and the fourth largest multinational company of Australia.
This report includes the various businesses of the company BHP Billiton and the various
strategies to be taken for improvement. The structure of the organization, problems, software
uses and the vulnerabilities in the system is also included in the report. This report includes the
software accounting packages that maybe included in the system.
Discussion:
In the year 2001, the merger between two different companies, Australian Broken Hill
Proprietary Company Limited (BHP) and the Billiton plc introduced BHP Billiton that is
supposed to include all the shares of both the company (Friederich and van Leeuwen 2017).
According to market capitalizations of Australia, it ranks among the top largest companies whose
business lies in mining.
Part 1:
Structure of organization:
The company has recently announced the introduction of a new model of operation that is
supposed to help the company to grow and to be ready to face the challenges from the market
(Ranosz, 2017). The company wants to focus their infrastructure to get geographical operation
and global services with high expertise and scaling.

4BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Fig: Organizational structure of BHP Billiton
(Source: CRONJE and VAN WYK)
Problems in operation:
Many operational problems are present due to the organizational structure of the
company. These risks are evident due to the vast evidence of the international scope created by
the organization and all the other industries that are currently involved in doing business that can
have an impact in the operation of the company.
1. The fluctuating prices due to changes in the market and the financial crisis of the
global market may create a negative impact in the desired results of the company (White 2017).

5BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
The changes in the market are always a risk and this causes a problem in the operation if the
required profit cannot be met due to price reduction.
2. The financial aspects may create a negative impact on the exchange rate of the
currency. The changes in the rates of currencies are also a risk to the company (Boulais 2017).
For example, a company doing business in a certain country may have an effect on their supplies
and operations if the rate of exchange of currencies of that market and the other associated
countries involved in the business increase.
3. The changes in the financial policies may affect the business as the company is
associated with many clients all over the world and the changes in policies like liquidity or
financial market change may lead to a disadvantage for the company (CRONJE and VAN WYK
2017).
System acquisition method:
The company has revealed information about investment in software models of operation
in decision automation of the industry and security of information. It has also made another
investment to make the company go digital (Pillay 2017). The technology will be concerned with
the digital roles of the company. The company is also looking to create a new and innovated
hardware that will focus on improvement of automated operations of the industry.
The company BHP Billiton has an architecture that is designed for a hybrid method of
operation, which will be automated, and provide use in management and scaling. The software
used here is software defined networking (SDN) for processing the IT operations.

6BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Sales operation of the company:
The company successfully acquires the sale of its products and made auctions for the sale
of certain products.
Fig: Sales flowchart
(Source: Washbourne)
The company aims to focus on low cost and large assets that can be expanded. The
company is committed to provide focus and investment in the economies of the company, which
includes ten operations and four commodities (Washbourne 2017). The operational cost across
industries and the robust demand of the products has made the company to give continuous
support to the core majorities in the company.

7BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Vulnerabilities in the system:
Due to the competition of the market for manufactured goods and commodities, the
increased resource acquisition from the natural sources for the development of the economy has
made the industries a target for cyber threats, which may be disruptive or destructive (Lee et al.
2017). These threats are due to the presence of certain technologies to help thrive in the market.
The supply chains of the company in a global level are the main sources of resources for
these cyber attacks. These attacks are very targeted and resourceful and the hackers are targeting
these industries due to their global impact on the market and their supply chains management.
The main vulnerabilities of the mining industries are their major dependence on integrated
services to achieve automation in their activities (Walker 2017). As the industry for mining is a
target for the economies of a country, the main objectives of hacking into the system is
achievement of information about the government, policies and trying to get the analyzed results
of a competitor. Stealing insights from a company about the mining prices, which are subjected
to volatility due to the market, is a common problem associated to the mining industry.
The company is also subjected to natural problems that affect the system of operation.
The change in industry is the most common problem that is associated with the industry. The
change in the price of ores on a daily basis may affect the cost of operation and if the profit
acquisition is not made, the company will not be able to thrive (Kapranov 2017). In addition, the
separation of a sister company from the main company led to decrease in asset prices. South32
when separated from the company to get more provisions, it only got a reduced stock prices and
this led to downfall. Moreover, the company is associated with tax troubles. Taxes are an
important acquisition for a government and if the requirements are not met, extreme actions

8BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
might be taken. The company is accused of maintaining their operations by doing their activities
associated with Australia from Singapore for lowering the tax to be paid to the government.
Task 2:
Accounting software packages:
The accounting software is used to define a special type of software that is used to record
and process transactions relating to the account of the company involved in modules like
payable, receivable or balance (Hall 2012). It works as an information system to store the
account related transactions. The software may be purchased or third party based which can be
used from anywhere. The presence of internet access is a necessity to access the software.
This software can be personal, accounting for personal information. These types of
software are mainly used to aim their uses for the benefit of home users. The main advantages
provided are the budget analysis and the transaction accounting. The low-end market type of
accounting software allows general business organizations to use this. The low-end products that
have small interfaces can be accounted by this package (Artho et al. 2012). The mid-market
package is used to serve organizations that are basing their activities on the medium level of
market acquisitions. The high-end market package is used to notify the businesses with high
activities on a global scale. The most typical uses are the acquisition of global data and large-
scale transactions of the company.
The company BHP Billiton also uses accounting software for maintaining their
transactional records and provides insights of the financial aspects. The software used by the
company is XBRL. The full form of XBRL is extensible Business Reporting Language (Doni,
Gasperini and Pavone 2016). The software is intended to be used by both the companies who are

9BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
dealing and the companies who are purchasing. The basic use of this software is to get
accounting insights and financial reports made by the company. The clients and the consumers
are the most important aspect in a company and the need to maintain the sales transaction of a
company is a necessity. The software is a simple way for financial business reporting.
The main features of the software are the ease of transfer between users. The main usage
of the software is Excel based and this makes the transfer of reports to users very easy. The
software can be used in any computers who have the Microsoft Office version (O'Riain, Curry
and Harth 2012). Moreover, the report provided by the software can be used to be converted to
any types of documents supported by Java. The software also allows resolving any types of error
that are made by the document. In addition, the software supports the easy allocation of
information to different types of templates. The templates are readymade and allow easy
incorporation of data.
The use of XBRL has helped the company to participate in the process of creating IFRS
financial reports that had US SEC compliance.
Market size:
BHP Billiton ranks among the top companies in Australia. Due to a commodity prices
surge, the company made a profit in the first half-year of 2017. The company made a profit of
3.2billion$ and the company expects to see a profit of 4.2billion$ in the next half-year. The
investors associated with the company is now getting a 0.52$ per share (Floris, Grant and
Cutcher 2013). The main cause of such profit acquisition is the rise in prices of the iron and coal
ore due to the increase in demand from China.

10BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Fig: Market share of BHP Billiton
(Source: Floris, Grant and Cutcher)
The company BHP Billiton is supposed to have achieved a market cap of 98.3 billion$ by may,
2017. The sales made by the company are 33.95 billion $.
Leaders in the market:
The BHP Billiton is the top mining company in Australia. But this does not mean that the
company will not have fierce completion in the market. The top companies in the global market
are surely trying their best to grab a hold of the top ranks (Miller, Van Megen and Buys 2012).
The Rio Tinto is another mining company who gives a serious competition to the BHP Billiton.
Glencore is another such company in the global market who also gives competition to the
company. The presence of better infrastructure and operations are the necessary things that are
required for the company to thrive in the global market. Other leaders of the market include the
Xstrata PLC, Anglo American plc, MMC Norilsk Nickel and rest.

11BUSINESS INFORMATION AND STRATEGIES
Fig: Share price of BHP Billiton
(Source: Miller, Van Megen and Buys)
Gaps and challenges:
The accounting software packages are used in nearly every business companies to get
financial and accounting aspects of the company. The advantage it provides is used to get more
efficiency in transactional accounting of the system. However, the main disadvantages are the
increased cost (Noble and Smith 2014). The cost of the software is not the only requirement in
terms of pricing that are needed to be met but includes the prices of all the other aspects like
system requirements, internet access and many more. The possibility of a backup in the system
require more technical support and the overall cost to install the system is more and this gives a
significant disadvantage. The next disadvantages are the complex nature of the software. Most
accountants are not conversant with the software and may need the presence of learning to
understand the system. This causes an increase in expense for providing information for learning
and gives a stress to the accountants for learning the software. Another disadvantage is the time
required for the process to work (Bagley, Dalton and Ortegren 2012). The time that required in
storing the information in the software is more than the manual work that can be done.