Organizational Structure And Leadership Of Australian Agricultural Company (AACo)

Company’s Structure

Describe about the Organizational Structure for Pluralist Society.

Primarily, this work delves on agricultural industry in Australia. Under this industry, the focal point would be on Australian Agricultural Company (AACo).  The aforementioned   company is a reputable firm that was established back in 1824 and headquartered at Brisbane. The operation of AACo is centrally pegged on cattle keeping and animal products. Ideally, AACo is established on a vast land of approximately 1000, 000 acres which covers a very expansive land that was set aside by the British parliament for cattle keeping. The company source most of its income from the Meat Processing Industry (Claydon, Knight & Rado, 2012). For the last five years, financial records indicate that the firm has been performing well. This is attributed by the fact that in 2015, the company registered a revenue accruing to $561, 026, 000. This was an incredible performance considering some of the underlying factors as par that time of the year that most of the firm were experiencing stiff completion from other marketeers globally.  AACo is under the leadership of Mr Jason Strong who is the Chief Executive Officer. Mr Strong works alongside the Chairman of AACo named Mr Donald McGauchie who is a non-member in the organization (Dessler, 2012).The firm has divided its operation into two major segments referred to as cattle and land. This piece of work will therefore explicate on company’s Structure, its leadership style providing strategies that have been laid down in the view of improving on the efficiency and performance of the firm to realize its ultimate objective amid stiff competition from other countries producing the same products to the market.

Accodimg to Gill (2012). AACo has come up with new business structure to meet the rising demands for the firm products in the market. This structure is geared towards bettering their performance and efficiency. Its supply chain is structured in three distinct chains namely; Grassfed cattle, Grainfed cattle and Northern Beef. It is important to underscore that AACo owns 18 cattle stations in different locations that covers 6.4 million hectares. The above mentioned is aimed at reducing some loopholes in its operation. Moreover, this chain is aimed at increasing ratio product (Collins, Leberman & Trenberth, 2012). On the same breathe the CEO and the other executive team wants to establish $ 911 million abattoir in the view of increasing its sale and beef production to the market at appropriate time. The company has come up with three segmentation in the view of improving on their productivity to make the work to be in simpler way. Each segment is managed by the human resource who sees to it that everything is conducted well and that the welfare of  the employees are met having been  provided with the required items for the job before the commencement of duty. Moreover, the three segments make it easier during feeding of the said animals that is beef. It is important to note that cattle are fed differently and therefore require very distinctive segments where the requisite attention and care would be provided to the said animals to increase on their productivity.  

Company’s leadership style

AACo operates under strong leadership a fact that puts it at a better position and making it to be reputable firm globally. As earlier mentioned the CEO of AACo is Mr. Jason. This current CEO employs good leadership style that has made the firm to be very competitive and most importantly be able to perform well in the (Leberman, Collins & Trenberth, 2012). Looking at the achievements of Mr. Jason, it is explicitly clear that the person employs different managerial techniques which is geared towards improving the performance of AACo and realize good profits. AACo has well-structured leadership starting from CEO to human resource managers who are assigned duties to be in charge of different segments for efficacy (Waniganayake, Cheeseman, Fenech, Hadley & Shepherd, 2012).  Australian Beef Industry Foundation (ABIF) acknowledge the zealous effort that was made by Mr Jason in transforming the face of AACo. Notably, ABIF conferred him with the Life membership for his exemplary performance in the company considering the fact that he has worked in different capacities in the company. The CEO of AACo employs transformative type of leadership. A transformational leader is the one who would wish to see new changes have been affected in the system for better functionality and expansion of the business. A good indication of his transformative style of leadership is evidenced where the structure of the firm is segmented into three under the new plan postulated by Mr. Jason.  Initially the company was operating under the two segments namely cattle and land which proved not to be very effective. Another breakthrough of the leadership is that $ 91 million has been set aside to expand this business by expanding abattoir (Eunson, 2012).  As such, the company would be vale to meet the needs of the growing number of clients within Australia and globally. Moreover, it would be important to state that Mr. Jason is friendly leader and therefore accords the employee chance to air their views in order to aid the company realize its setbacks for corrective measures to be put in place. This approach is seen to be the most effective and results to innumerable success to the company that employs such tactic in its leadership. A good leadership style is the one that is synchronized with some theoretical framework of leadership. Some of the notable theory of leadership are Path Goal theory, Managerial grid theory postulated by Blake and contingencies theory (Thorpe, Buti, Davies, Fridman & Jonson, 2013). Looking at the leadership of Mr. Jason, one can easily deduce an element of Path Goal theory approach. Under the aforementioned theory, the leader is focussed to achieve something for the benefit of the company. All this effort is geared towards realizing the core goal of the organization.  Similarly, the leadership of Mr. Jason may be identified through the use of managerial grid theory.  Since the aforementioned theory is divide in some segments, there are different attributes that are given depicting a particular leader. However, it is ideal to indicate that the CEO of AACo inspires his employees a reason that makes the firm to be among the leading company that deals with animal products globally.   

Directors

The table below shows the list of its directors and management team. Source: (Scott, 2013)

Name	Position	Start Date
Mr Jason Strong	Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director	24 Jan 2014
Mr David Charles Crombie	Non-Executive Director	5 Oct 2011
Mr Thomas (Tom) B Keene	Non-Executive Director	5 Oct 2011
Mr Stuart Alexander Black	Non-Executive Director	5 Oct 2011
Mr Anthony Abraham	Non-Executive Director	7 Sep 2014
Dr Shehan Dissanayake	Non-Executive Director	27 Apr 2012
Mr Neil Reisman	Non-Executive Director	10 May 2016
Mr Donald Gordon McGauchie	Non-Executive Director, Non-Executive Chairman	19 May 2010

Name	Position
A. Slatter	Chief Financial Officer
Bruce Bennett	Company Secretary
G. Davis	General Manager – Innovation and Technology
A. Bourke	General Manager – People and Culture
C. Levick	General Manager – Sales and Marketing

Seeleman, El As (2015) assert that AACo has laid down some good strategies to improve on their performance and service delivery to the growing market both locally and internationally.  Some of the notable step it has embraced is the issue of using both online and offline means to market its brand.  The use of offline means encompasses using the print media such as magazine, newspapers, journals, brochure and television means. This is considered to be the traditional means of marketing; however, its role cannot be underrated since they are many people who still rely on it for firsthand information (Strang, 2015). Since the company is serving vast market beyond the sphere of Australia, it has too embraced the use of online means such as opening a website where they market their brand globally. Through online means, AACo is able to reach diversified clients from different nation and therefore playing a significant role in expanding their market (Hoye, Smith, Nicholson & Stewart, 2015). AACo also deals with beef products a fact that enables it to distribute some of their canned meat to some restaurants and franchises that are located within Australia.  Proper strategies and good managerial leadership makes it possible for the firm to have efficient distribution of its products (Weaver & Willnat, 2012).

Similarly, the company transports its products overseas to Asia countries and America where its consumption is very high. It also does proper marketing at this nation so as to fully sensitize the community on its product and informing them on variety of the products they offer to the market. Apart from marketing, AACo is establishing more stores where different clients from Australia may get access to its product from the nearest shopping centres.  This has also been seen to have played significant role in widening its market and their sales.  Due to the company’s reputation, it is putting some good measures to see to it that it heightens its sale by reaching potential clients who are geographically spread in different destinations (Raphael, 2012). AACo has variety of products that best suits the needs of the clients. It is due to this diversification on products that they are at better position to increase their sale throughout the year. The better thing with AACo is that it does not have seasonality.  This implies that they sale there produce throughout the year and their sale is not affected by any factor such as climate or festivities (Miner, 2015). Moreover, the firm has well trained personnel who are skilled and able to provide their services diligently. It is due to this expertise that the business it able to meet its objectives and maintain high standards of hygiene that makes most of the people have trust in their products.

Management

I find the strategies laid down by AAACo to be the most effective and instrumental to the business field. Most importantly this is too enhanced by good leadership under the headship of Mr. Jason.  The aforementioned CEO uses some variability of leadership technique to see to it that they are achieving their core objective in their organization.  Moreover, the way the company has been structured make it easy for the CEO with other managers to carry out their duty effectively (Weaver & Willnat, 2012). Proper structuring of this company into three segments  make all  the department run on smoothly as each departmental heads or human resource managers on each level is liable for any activities taking place. It is due to this proper division that AACo is on a better platform to realize multiple fruits amid competition from other companies of the same level.  It is important to underscore that a company’s structure and organization determines their performance.  AACo is a company that has existed for more than 100 years due to good leadership and structure that have been observed for so long. Currently, AACo expands their market to Hong Kong and Broadleaf in US where they export red meat.  They are sensitizing the on the importance of taking red meat obliterating some of the misconceptions that was previously held about the red meat. The focal point of establish AACo was to improve on quality of merino sheep for export to countries such as Britain.  It has now expanded its cattle station to eighteen a fact that shows that is operating a profit making business.  The financial records too indicate that they are registering some positive deviation in sale every year for the last five years a fact that puts it on a better place.

In 2001, it entered the Australian Stock Exchange where the firm could now asses its performance in comparison with other firms in the nation. As earlier mentioned, transformative leaders wishes to see changes effected in their work of place before their term expires.  It is due to this that Mr. Strong as a transformative leader has initiated some of the notable things in the company which would propel the company to realize its ultimate goals Vis a Vis underlying factors. This is the reason that the executive set aside $ 91 million to establish an abattoir in the view of expanding their market and improving on their production due to high demand of the products (Luthans, Doh & Hodgetts, 2012). The abattoir is aimed at meeting the global demand for meat product from AACo.  This company is amongst the leading company in production of meat products to the global market.  This is the fact that makes the organization select a leader who is transformative to initiate good project that would see the company maintain its status and enjoy the economic advantage.

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