Strategic information system ensures that the company that uses it has a competitive advantage against the competitors, in the business environment. It is considered to be an amazing and effective tool in the technology world (Arvidsson, et al., 2014). The company using this system has the advantage against the competitors as the system allows creating barriers. Not only it provides protection from the external environment, but also ensures enhanced marketing by generating effective databases. It helps in retaining the existing customers and suppliers; the cost of the product is lowered (Boonstra, 2013).
The company BHP Billiton is involved in the business of metals, mining and petroleum. The headquarter of the company is in Melbourne, Australia. The company works on the mission of being the world’s leading Resources Company. The aim of the company is to create and maintain a long term relationship with the stakeholders, through the means of invention, procurement, development or enhancement and aggressive marketing of the natural resources. In order to attain such aims, the company has an organizational structure (Chen, et al., 2010). The organizational structure of a company defines the reporting relationships as well as the action plans that have to be performed in order to achieve success (Zheng, et al., 2010). Talking about the organizational structure of the company BHP Billiton, the company has a central board that delegates its authority to the Chief Executive Officer, who in return is accountable to the board, for the actions done by him/her within the authority granted. The company further has four departments, namely risk and audit committee, sustainability committee, nomination committee as well as the remuneration committee. For the purpose of management and governance, the company has the department of policy formulation which includes charter, code of business conduct, risk management policy, sustainable development policy, human resources policy and resource planning. Also the company has key committees that include group management committee, financial risk management committee, global ethics panel, market risk management committee. There is also a department that is responsible to lay down the key standards and procedures which includes financial reporting standards, financial external reporting procedure, environment standard, fraud management procedure etc. for the purpose of assurance the company BHP Billiton has external auditors, group audit services, health safety environment and community auditors, peer review major projects and ore/oil/gas reserves review.
Due to the organizational structure the company BHP Billiton shall be facing the problem of (Treville, et al., 2017):
(Manikas & Hansen, 2013) The most prominent system acquisition methods are the commercial software as well as customer software along with ERP, which stands Enterprise Resource Planning (Addo-Tenkorang & Helo, 2011). Elaborating the software terms, the commercial software refers to the program which has been formulated and developed in order to ensure the license or for the purpose of sale to the ultimate or the end users. Such software is generally expected at the times of serving a commercial purpose. Initially, when it was in the development phase, the commercial software was referred as the software of the proprietors that is, it was being considered as the proprietary software (Li, et al., 2013). But in the contemporary era, the software is available through various open sources. It is easy to implement and is economic but before its usage the user has to pay, irrespective of their experience with the software. The custom software, as the name expresses is the software that is customized according to the needs and specifications of the users. The users can be an individual or an organization of any type. This software is also called as tailor made software. This software is expected to be proven as the most developed and designed effective software, as it is being developed on the basis of the needs of the users. However, as it is a customized the software takes a lot of time as well as cost to get developed and designed. Talking about the ERP which stands for Enterprise resource planning, helps the organization in practicing an integrated application system that assists in managing the operations and functions of the business. This software also handles the back office operations that are concerned with the matter of technology, personnel as well as the services offered (Beheshti & Beheshti, 2010).
Among the three, the most likely system acquisition method is the ERP, which stands for enterprise resource planning, followed by custom software and then the commercial software. This is because the ERP method has the ability to have a deep knowledge regarding the management and other processes of the organization and, develop and design software according to the needs of the organization. Moreover, the custom software is also considered to be prominent because of the fact that is provides the flexibility to the user to tailor the software according to their needs and preferences. However, custom software is expected to be practiced by the large organizations which have a great turnover, as this software is expensive and takes time in developing.
The problems in the control of the enterprise resource planning arise as the software enables the organization to formulate an integrated application system that assists in managing the operations and functions of the business. This software also handles the back office operations that are concerned with the matter of technology, personnel as well as the services offered. The control of implementation of the enterprise resource planning faces various problems from within the organization. Firstly, it becomes complicated to have an idea regarding the selection in matter of the perfect product that shall ensure success. The selection becomes difficult due to the fact that there are more than 500 applications related to ERP in the market. However, more than this the ERP faces issue in the implementation because of the commitment from the top management. As this system is closely involved in the management process, the senior personnel play a very important role in the implementation, which further marks to be the invitation of delayed decision making and complex implementation. The biggest threat to the enterprise resource planning system is the fraud of leakage of relevant and confidential information. Also the system has the risk of getting the operations and functions of the business disrupted due to the attacks of the hackers. Moreover, the ERP software has the disadvantage of getting disrupted or disoriented in the middle of the implementation or the during the ongoing process, which further has the risk of getting fraudulent because of the leakage of the relevant and confident piece of information (Sharma & Panigrahi, 2013).
Due to the advancement in the information technology sector, the software of accounting is getting in practice in Australia. Initially the jobs were done in batches and this marks to be the reason that theta the organizations initiated the step to make an investment for the purpose of developing the proprietary accounting system. In the year 1973, the idea of accounting was considered to be feasible, because of the enhancing and growing technology the computers were becoming capable to perform and get installed the system software. Now the computers, because of the advanced technology, have become capable to handle large sized operations that help in easy and quick financial responses. The adopting of the accounting software has been practices at a faster pace in Australia. In fact the small size business of the Australia is more towards the adoption of the accounting software packages. The reason behind such improvement in the pace of the accounting software is the reduction in the complexity of the paperwork process, free from the risk and fraud of errors and omission, time saving as well as economic in costing. The accounting system is easy as it just requires the input, and the output is being presented automatically which is more efficient, exact and quick (Kanellou, 2013).
The current market size of the accounting software packages in the country Australia. The history of the development of this accounting software has been remarkable. Australia is marked to be having the three biggest accounting system, that are so advanced and developed that they provide such services that enables the growing small and medium sized companies of Australia to have a competitive advantage in the market. These three accounting software package is Xero, Intuit and MYOB that has the capability of dominating the accounting software market of Australia. However, even this software that are developed by these companies have shortcomings, but strategies has been formulated to overcome such shortcomings.
The leading accounting software in the Australian accounting system market are being developed and designed by the three biggest software companies in Australia. The names of these companies are Xero as well as MYBO along with Intuit. These companies are proving to dominate the Australian accounting system market. The reason being the efficiency, correctness as well as the effectiveness that is being provided by the software which is being developed by these leading companies. The major competitive advantage of these biggest accounting software companies are that it integrates the software of the account into cloud. This is done for the purpose of solving the issues and the challenges which is concerned with the desktop accounting software system.
With the advancement in the technology, the accounting systems have improved accordingly. But, with the advancements comes the challenges. The users of the accounting systems or packages are facing various issues which are concerned with the lack of security, under which relevant and confidential information is being leaked out. Also the challenge of weak reporting services, lack of efficiency and accuracy and features along with being expensive are being faced by the users (Ghasemi, et al., 2011). However, with every problem comes the solution. Following are the certain recommendations:
References:
Addo-Tenkorang, R. & Helo, P., 2011. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): A Review Literature Report. Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science.
Arvidsson, V., Holmström, J. & Lyytinen, K., 2014. Information systems use as strategy practice: A multi-dimensional view of strategic information system implementation and use.. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, pp. 45-61.
Beheshti, H. M. & Beheshti, C. M., 2010. Improving productivity and firm performance with enterprise resource planning. Enterprise Information Systems, pp. 445-472.
Boonstra, A., 2013. How do top managers support strategic information system projects and why do they sometimes withhold this support?.. International Journal of Project Management,, pp. 498-512.
Chen, C. J., Huang, J. W. & Hsiao, Y. C., 2010. Knowledge management and innovativeness: The role of organizational climate and structure.. International Journal of Manpower, pp. 848-870.
Ghasemi, M., Shafeiepour, V., Aslani, M. & Barvayeh, E., 2011. The impact of Information Technology (IT) on modern accounting systems. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, pp. 112-116.
Guide, D. & Ketokivi, M., 2017. Operations management. Journal of Operations Management.
Gunasekaran, A., 2017. Productivity and Quality management. International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management.
Hemmatfar, M., Salehi, M. & Bayat, M., 2010. Competitive advantages and strategic information systems.. International Journal of Business and Management, p. 158.
Kanellou, A. &. S. C., 2013. Accounting benefits and satisfaction in an ERP environment.. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, pp. 209-234.
Linnenluecke, M. K. & Griffiths, A., 2010. Corporate sustainability and organizational culture. Journal of world business,, pp. 357-366.
Li, S., Da Xu, L. & Wang, X., 2013. A continuous biomedical signal acquisition system based on compressed sensing in body sensor networks.. IEEE transactions on industrial informatics, pp. 1764-1771.
Manikas, K. & Hansen, K. M., 2013. Software ecosystems–a systematic literature review.. journal of Systems and Software, pp. 1294-1306.
Sharma, A. & Panigrahi, P. K., 2013. A review of financial accounting fraud detection based on data mining techniques. arXiv preprint arXiv.
Treville, S. d., Ketokivi, M. & Singhal, V., 2017. Competitive Manufacturing in a High-Cost Environment. Journal of Operations Management Special Issues, pp. 49-51.
Zheng, W., Yang, B. & McLean, G. N., 2010. Linking organizational culture, structure, strategy, and organizational effectiveness: Mediating role of knowledge management.. Journal of Business research, pp. 763-771.
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