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Question: Disucss about the BHP Company Structure. Answer: Introduction BHP Billiton is a dual-listed Anglo-Australian metal, mining and petroleum multinational company, whose headquarters are in Melbourne Australia. The company was founded in 1885 in a small town in Australia and in the year 2015, the company was ranged as the worlds largest mining company by market value (BHP, 2016). The company is listed as BHP Billiton Limitedin Australia and BHP Billiton plcin Britain. The two branches of the company are separately listed and publicly traded, although their operations are same and have a single management structure (BHP, 2016). The groups headquarter is Australia, and the focus of this paper will be the AustralianBHP Billiton Limited. The operations of BHP Billiton Limited range from mining, oil and gas exploration as well as mineral processing in over 25 countries. The operational units of the company include. Copper Potash Coal Petroleum And Iron Or This paper explores BHP company structure, its operational problems, and the most likely system acquisition method for the company, an overview of the company's sales procedures and examines possible frauds that are likely to happen in the company's sales procedures. Part two of this paper covers the development and adoption of an accounting software package for the company; it identifies the market leaders of accounting software packages and examines the current gaps and challenges encountered by users of accounting software and packages. Finally, the paper recommends the best approach to develop or adopt accounting software, as well as the most appropriate product currently in the market, that can fit the needs of the company. Current Organization Structure According to BHPs annual report (2016, p.5), the companys top tier leadership comprises the board of directors, with the chief executive officer being the secretary to the board. In a nutshell the management of the company can be classified into five levels; starting with the board of directors, the chief executive officer, group managers, the business-marketing-treasury and the Business risk and audit committees (RAC) (BHP, 2014). The Risk and Audit Committee is tasked with an oversight role; helping the management board to monitor the operations of the group and the actions and decisions of the chief executive officer with the aim of ensuring that progress is made towards the achievement of the corporate goals and objectives (BHP, 2016). Figure 2.0 BHPs Organizational Structure. Source (BHP, 2014). The current structure has placed the necessary safeguards to ensure that errors and inefficiencies do not occur in the organization. In particular, the inclusion of an audit and business risk committee that plays a critical supervisory role ensures that the management processes, budgeting, sales and marketing as well as compliance issues are handled appropriately (BHP, 2014). This committee is responsible for the oversight of risk management and reviews the internal controls and risk management systems. With all these checks and balances in place, its hard to identify obvious inefficiencies or errors that could arise as a result of the organizational structure. However, no system is completely fault proof and BHP Billiton is not an exception. The sheer size of the organization, and the numerous departments that are in operation would be very difficult to manage and account for, if a robust accounting information system is not in place. As such, there are possibilities of having human errors in consolidating financial data from all the levels of the organization. Most Likely system acquisition method The company - BHP Billiton- is involved in the mining, processing and sale of a wide range of products that includes minerals, metals and petroleum (BHP, 2016). For such an organization, Shaul and Tauber (2013) argues that the most appropriate and efficient system to be used would be an Enterprise resource planning (ERP). An ERP is a business process management system that enables business to use integrated software systems, in the management of business processes (Shaul and Tauber, 2013). ERP facilities the automation of numerous back-office functions related to service, human resources and technology (Shaul and Tauber, 2013). The software facilitates the integration of all facets of business operations, including; product planning, development phase, manufacturing, sales and marketing. All the operations are integrated into a single software application, storing data in single databases and accessed through a unified user interface. An organizations shared transactional data are co llected into a single database, from multiple sources, thus eliminating data redundancy while providing data integrity and a common user experience with a single source of truth (Shaul and Tauber, 2013, p. 3). The choice of this system acquisition method is motivated by the wide range of activities the company is involved in as well as the need to have a single central collection of data that would easily give a unified view of the organization. Implementation of an ERP by an organization like BHP Billiton would greatly ease the management and decision making, as reporting by various facets of the business are consolidated into a single system. With an ERP, a number of standalone databases are eliminated, thus bringing order and harmony as various system users are able to create, store, and use the same data derived through common processes. Implementation of an ERP also eases the process of securing data as it is easy to secure a single centralized data source, while ensuring that the data in the repository is complete, up to data and correct. This ensures data integrity for every task performed throughout the organization, from a quarterly financial statement to a single outstanding rece ivables report, without deploying error-prone spreadsheets (Shaul and Tauber, 2013). Sales procedures for BHP Billiton BHP Billiton has a number of sales procedures depending on the commodity to be sold. For precious metals, a simple auction process is used where the company assigns its Ekati diamonds to the highest bidders at competitive market prices. A second approach is the normal sales procedure where the company prices the commodity, based on prices on the international market especially iron and customers places orders for the commodities. The third approach applies to crude oil where the pricing is determined by the external entities and not an individual producer. In the competitive auction sales procedure, BHP Billiton floats the precious metals to be sold, particularly rough diamonds. Customers places bids for the commodity on sale, with the sale being issued to the highest bidder. Figure 2.0 Sales Procedure Control problems in the system and possible fraud A number of control problems can be highlighted from the system. Key among them is the lack of guiding principles that stipulate the minimum number of participants in such an auction. Since the company uses a traditional auctioneering method in the sales procedure, the approach is susceptible to fraud. Unlike the common internet auction fraud, which according the Chau and Faloutsos (2005) involves sellers selling non-existent items, the type of fraud likely to affect BHP Billiton is a pricing fraud. This is where if the auction is attended by a small number of customers, the group can easily conspire in bidding allowing one of them to purchase the commodity at a low price due to lack of engagement in the auction. Accounting software is defined as computer software used to record, process and keeping tracks of accounting transactions within specific functional modules accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, trial balance, etc. The software may be developed internally by the user organization or may be purchased from third party such as MYOB, Xero, QuickBooks, etc. Some organization combined third party application software with local modification of their needs. The decision to develop an in-house solution or adopt an existing solution is driven by the specific needs of an organization. As such, the first step is to assess the accounting needs of an organization as well as the available budget for such a project. Other factors to be considered includes cost, integration with other system, ease of use, connectivity to banks, security of data and customer support. The current market size for the accounting software packages is huge; driven by the adoption of IT in every facet of business. Technological innovations have also influenced how current accounting systems are developed or adopted. In particular, cloud computing has greatly affected how accounting packages are deployed. Major software providers have adopted the cloud model and are providing accounting software-as-a-service. These cloud-based systems now integrate a variety of the workflows within a business, rather than just the basic accounting function. The top market leaders in accounting software and packages, according to Smithink (2016) include Xero, FreshBooks, Sage, QuickBooks, Intacct and Oracle. A survey by consultancy firm Smithink showed that majority of small and medium businesses preffered Xero and MYOB cloud based accounting solutions. Cloud-based applications charge relatively little to upgrade, compared to in-house hardware, which could cost a fortune to increase infrastructure. For the organization under focus, two accounting software systems would be appropriate for the organization, namely Xero and Oracle NetSuite. Xero Xero is online based accounting software that facilitates automation of various accounting processes while providing a great degree of flexibility. The package has easy-to-use and sleek features, making it possible for non-technical users to easily use the system. Being a web-based system, multi-user logins are possible, enabling teams in different offices to work seamlessly. Besides the basic accounting features, the package also provides advance features that facilitate asset management and monitoring of asset depreciation. The basic features include Automated billing Online payment options Depreciation tracking Invoice creation Multi-currency support Credit card processing Credit card and banks syncing. Oracle NetSuite Oracle NetSuite provides a wide range of business process management including enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) functions. Being an ERP and CRM this package would the most appropriate for the organization under focus. The NetSuite Financials system can integrate with a companys back-office, sales and service processes. The software suite includes application for inventory management, financial reporting, supply chain management, financial accounting, payment management and business analytics. Like most other modern systems, NetSuite is accessible online by use of a Web browser and mobile devices. Challenges encountered by users of accounting software packages Users of desktop based accounting software have been found to experience five main challenges that include; Data management: one may lose financial data if something goes wrong. For example, if a system fails or is infected by a virus (Romney and Steinbart, 2012). Software updates: For desktop program, users have to make sure that it is up to date. This is done manually, which takes time (Romney and Steinbart, 2012). Data availability: a user can't access data or software anywhere, anytime for example at home or on vacations if using desktop software (Romney and Steinbart, 2012). Device Independence: Desktop accounting software is dependent on the device, operating system and other hardware configuration (Romney and Steinbart, 2012). Multi-user access: With desktop accounting software, an organization gets single-user access. It's somewhat expensive to get multi-user access with the software (Romney and Steinbart, 2012). With regards to cloud based solutions, users experience challenges relates to issues of data security. With the increasing incidences of hacking attacks, data security is paramount to most organization. With cloud based accounting software packages, a great concern in the minds of system users is whether the data would be absolutely secure in the cloud (Khalil, 2014). However, security of data in the cloud may sometimes be even greater than if an organization was hosting the systems locally. This is because cloud service providers are able to invest heavily in securing their infrastructure, more than many organizations could afford at a local level (Khalil, 2014). Considering the nature of operations of the organization, an ERP would be the best solution for the company. In particular, Oracle NetSuite comes out strongly as the most appropriate product to be adopted for this case. Being cloud-based, and having features that would allow it to be operated as both an accounting package and an ERP, this software suit would perfectly serve the organization. References Billiton, B.H.P. (2014). Value through performance: Annual Report 2014. Billiton, B.H.P. ( 2016). BHP Billiton Annual Report 2016.Retrieved on August,22, p.2017. Cramton, P., Dinkin, S. and Wilson, R. (2012). Auctioning rough diamonds: a competitive sales process for BHP Billitons Ekati diamonds.Handbook of Market Design. https://www. cramton. umd. edu/papers2010-2014/cramton-dinkin-wilson-auctioning-rough-diamonds. pdf. Chau, D. and Faloutsos, C. (2005), October. Fraud detection in electronic auction. InEuropean WebMining Forum (EWMF 2005)(p. 87). Khalil, I.M. (2014). Cloud computing security: a survey.Computers,3(1), pp.1-35. Shaul, L. and Tauber, D. (2013). Critical success factors in enterprise resource planning systems: Review of the last decade.ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR),45(4), p.55. Bahssas, D.M., AlBar, A.M. and Hoque, M.R. (2015). Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)Systems: Design, Trends and Deployment.The International Technology Management Review,5(2), pp.72-81. Hansnata, M. (2016). The impact of digital innovation on the social structure of professional public accounting practice in Australia. Hubbard, T.N., Hubbard, T.N., Moore, M.J. and Moore, M.J. (2017). BHP Billiton: Mining Potash.Kellogg School of Management Cases, pp.1-13. Romney, M.B. and Steinbart, P.J. (2012).Accounting information systems. Boston: Pearson.