Strategic Information System for Business and Enterprise: BHP Billiton

This report provides a detailed analysis of BHP Billiton's strategic information system, organizational structure, and market position. It begins with an executive summary and table of contents, followed by an introduction to the company and its operations. The report examines the organizational structure, its operational problems, and the system acquisition methods used by BHP Billiton. It includes a system flowchart of the sales procedures and discusses potential fraud risks. The second part focuses on the accounting software packages used, market size, and leaders in the market. The report also identifies gaps and challenges associated with the software and concludes with recommendations for improvement. References are provided at the end.

Running head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
Name of Student
Name of University
Authors note

1STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
Executive summary
The following assignment is an analysis of the accounting software package and the
chosen company for the assignment is the BHP Billiton. The assignment discusses the
organizational structure and its problems. The assignment discusses about the marketing position
of the company and its global share in the market. The assignment also discusses about the
limitation of the accounting software.

2STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................4
Organizational structure of the company.....................................................................................4
Figure 1: Organizational structure of the BHP............................................................................4
Operational problems with the organizational structure..............................................................5
System Acquisition method.........................................................................................................6
System flowchart of the sales procedures for the BHP Billiton..................................................7
Problems in the system and the sorts of fraud are possible in this system..................................9
Part -2...............................................................................................................................................9
Accounting Software packages....................................................................................................9
Market size.................................................................................................................................10
Leader in the market..................................................................................................................10
Gaps and challenges for the software:.......................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13

3STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
Introduction
The following assignment is the study of the accounting software package and the chosen
company for the assignment is the “BHP Billiton”. BHP stands for Broken Hill Proprietary an
Australian company. This assignment studies the organizational structure of the chosen company
and related operational .The assignment further discusses about the system acquisition method of
the company operation. The assignment further discusses the sale flow chart of the company and
a possible fraud which is possible in the company
In the second it focuses upon the accounting software package used by the BHP Billiton
and its market size. The assignment analyses the leaders in the market and finally determines the
gaps and challenges which can be encountered using the accounting software and make some
recommendation how software should be with the respect to described difficulties
Discussion
BHP stands for BHP stands for Broken Hill Proprietary which is an Australian company.
Its headquarters is in Melbourne, Australia. It deals in multinational mining activities. Founded
in the year 1885 it was considered as the largest mining company in the year 2015 among the all
mining companies in the world(Romney and Steinbart 2012).. It is the fourth largest company in
the Australia. According to the financial report of the 2016 the BHP company has earner the
revenue over thirty billion dollars and the profit earned by the company was over six billion. It is
the listed in the stock market under the name with “BLT” with its share value over 1351

4STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
GBX(Lodhia and Martin 2014). The company operates in over 25 countries employing over
forty thousand people. It main production is copper, petroleum, coal and iron ore.
Part 1
Organizational structure of the company
The organization structure of the company implies that the whole organization is
controlled and managed by the board member of the company (de Villiers and Alexander 2014).
They are controlling the risk and audit committee, sustainability committee, nominal committee
and the remuneration committee. The board members are also controlling the chief executive
officer of the company and the CEO is responsible to present all the accountability of the
company.

5STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
Figure 1: Organizational structure of the BHP
(Source: de Villiers and Alexander 2014, pp-198)
Operational problems with the organizational structure
BHP Billiton is the fourth largest company in Australia therefore to manage such a huge
organization and devise an organization structure which can maximize the profit for the
company. Here are the few challenges that the company face in its operation.
The organizational structure
The organizational structure as discussed above shows that the CEO of the company is
entangled to the board member and his only role is to present the financial report to the
company(Grant et al 2014). If the CEO wants to make changes in the production he has to
persuade all the board members for his decision. If the board member fined these challenges
risky then they will reject the plan (Ghaffour, Missimer and Amy 2013). Thus the organizational
structure prevents the CEO to bring any innovative changes.
The resources availability
Resources availability is the major concern for all industry and to utilize them properly is
the great challenge for them. The major resource required for BHP Billiton in the mining field is
the water. The company operates over 25 countries and may face water shortage in that area.
Therefore to design an effective model plan for management of the major resources like water is
the prime motive of the company. The better drainage of the acid mine knows as the AMD is
other concern of the company.

6STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
The innovation in the business
The organizational structure of the company offers minimum innovation in its business as
the CEO of the company is bounded by the Board members decision(WANG and FAN 2012).
Timely innovation in the business is the crucial to adapt to the changing demand of the
customers
The fluctuation of the price in the international market
The price of the product fluctuates acceding to the changes in the international market
which can be positive or negative(Floris, Grant and Cutcher 2013). The negative impact on the
market hampers the desired target of the company. The change in the market is not going to be
stable therefore to work in that environment and produce the desired profit from it is the huge
challenge for the company.
System Acquisition method
The system acquisition method is the method through which business can effectively
manage its operation. BHP Billiton is the multinational mining company thus the prefer System
Acquisition method for this company is the commercial software. According to the news channel
“IT News” the company has bought a software which is cloud based, the name of the software is
Loc8 developed the firm in Melbourne which is entrusted with the work to manage the business
operation of the company(YANG, YANG and DENG 2012). The ERP of the BHP named as
“1SAP”.

7STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
System flowchart of the sales procedures for the BHP Billiton
Figure 2: The production of the metal worldwide of the BHP Billiton Company.
(Source: de Villiers and Alexander 2014 pp-212)
Sales are very crucial for the company as through this they will earn the revenue. To have
efficient sales flowchart is great challenge for any company, a good sale flowchart will increase
the sale of the company(Andzulis, Panagopoulos and Rapp 2012). The above diagram shows the
production of the metal worldwide of the BHP Billiton Company. Below is the sales flowchart of
the company.

8STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
Figure 3: The sales process model
(Source: Teittinen, Pellinen and Järvenpää 2013, pp-298)
The sales flowchart shows that the firstly the company will send the quotation which will contain
the entire product and its current price. At the second phase if the customer is satisfied with
terms and condition of the contract and like the price and agrees to buy the product then he will
sign the contract or else the deal will be terminated (Hatley and Pirbhai 2013). After the contract
is signed the company will check for the stock if the stock is enough after receiving the payment
the product will be shipped. If the stock is enough then it will arrange the product and ship the
product.

9STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
Problems in the system and the sorts of fraud are possible in this system
Operating and managing a huge company is a challenging task. With numerous
operations running simultaneously (Hipgrave 2013). It is evident that some problem is going to
arise in managing the operation.
Firstly the company is using the cloud based software to store its data and managing it, so these
are data vulnerable to the cyber attack or cybercrime if there is not a strong firewall to protect the
data (Lei and Ghorbani 2012). Therefore the company has to regularly update its firewall to
protect from the data theft.
Secondly the company is operating its supply chain at the global level thus the data of the
company are not secure and easily be hacked. The hackers mainly target these companies as they
work with the government so their data are very confidential and valuable which can cost huge
loss to the company and country.
The possible fraud in the company can be in terms of its product as the coal and other metals are
very valuable and have a huge demand in the market (Mirzoev and Lyubartsev 2013). Thus the
employees of the company can sell the products to the private buyers at lower price by bribing
the employee. Thus it can be huge loss to the company.
Part -2
Accounting Software packages
The accounting software package is the type of the software which is designed to manage
the accounting operation of a company like finance of the company, transaction, inventory. The
accounting software can be used either for the persona use or for the business purpose.

10STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
The accounting software used by the company BHP Billiton is XBRL. The full form of XBRL is
extensible Business Reporting Language (Simkin ,Norman and Rose 2014). The software has
been designed to work with an excel software that has helped in delivering the accounts
transaction to the client easily (Romney and Steinbart 2012). The software can be used with the
basic Microsoft office version.
Market size
The BHP Billiton has been considered as the largest mining company in the year 2015. .
The company operates in over 25 countries employing over forty thousand people. The current
revenue of the coma pay is over 31 billion dollars with the profit over six billion in the year 2016
(Trüby and Paulus 2012). Below diagram shows the market growth of the company.
Figure 3: The market capitalization of the BHP till August 2017
(Source: Hipgrave 2013, pp-7)
The market capitalization of the company has crossed over 108 billion dollars in the year 2016.
Leader in the market
In the year 2017 at the quarter 1the top mining company in the international market is
occupied by the BHP Billiton having revenues over 200 billion dollars from the industrial and

11STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
mining activity in the year 2017 The company is regarded as the largest producer of the Copper
metal. The second place is taken by Rio Toronto with its revenue over 68 billion dollars.
Figure 4: The position of BHP Billiton in the year 2017
(Source: Trüby and Paulus 2012, pp-56)
The above figure shows the position of BHP Billiton in the year 2017.
Gaps and challenges for the software:
There are various advantages of using accounting software but there are still some issue
faced by the software. Followingare:
 As the accounting software stores data online it needs to have a strong firewall to protect
its data from cybercrime.
 The software may not be compatible with the software used in the company(Teittinen,
Pellinen and Järvenpää 2013).
 The accounting software is not user friendly as it has complex functions which are
difficult to operate.