GSBS6008 Global Business Management

Introduction: 

Nowadays, it is very important for each and every company to analyze its environment and concerned people. There are different types of environments where the organization survives. These environments are such as general environment and specific environment which can have impact on the organization’s business operations. This report is focused on analyzing the general and specific environment of Amcor Limited. Amcor Limited is an international packaging company that produces and develops flexible packaging, specialty cartons, pharmaceuticals, personal and home care, rigid containers, medical device and other related products. This report includes the discussion about the general and specific environmental factors. Moreover, it discusses the concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility and ethics in context of Amcor Limited. At the end, it defines the culture of the company by using personal insights quiz. This quiz includes the ideas and opinions of candidates working in the organization.

Company Background 

Amcor Limited is a popular packaging firm which produces and develops rigid containers, flexible packaging, cartons, closures and services for beverage, food, medical-device, pharmaceutical, home care, personal care and other products. The company is listed on ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) and it has its head office in Southbank, Victoria in Australia. The corporate headquarter of company is in Zurich, Switzerland. As per the figures of 2017, Amcor has 35,211 employees and produced over US$9 billion in 200 locations in more than 40 nations. In the year 1860, the company was established as Australian Paper Manufacturers and it has renamed in 1986 as Amcor Limited. Previously, it was manufacturing paperboard products and pulp paper. Looking at the global status, the company is included in various international stock market indices, comprising of the CDP Climate Disclosure Leadership Index, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, FESE4 Good Index Series and Ethibel Excellence Investment Register (Euromonitor International, 2017).  

Environmental Analysis

The external environment of an organization includes different forces, factors and situations outside the boundaries of an organization which can affect its growth (Olarewaju and Folarin, 2012). It can be stated that external environment of a company is formed with two major components i.e. general environment and specific environment (Keith, 2017). The concepts of both types of environments and their explanation in context of Amcor Limited are given below:

General Environment 

General environment is the environment that includes different background situations which affect the organization. It consists of broad environment and different external factors like economic, political, social, social, global, cultural and technological factors. In general, it can be stated that it includes the surroundings in which a company operates its business. These factors can impact the growth and development of organization in today’s competitive scenario. These factors are known as environmental dimensions (Robbins, et al, 2013). Changes in any factor will influence the companies, typically by affecting their specific environments.

For this report, the chosen environmental dimension is economic dimension. In the general environment, economic dimension is related to the economic factors and position of the perspective country in which company operates its business operations. This dimension includes some factors and elements of economic environment like inflation level, interest rate, and income of people, gross domestic product and unemployment level. Changes in these factors can affect prices and demands of products and services offered by the company. For the managers of a firm, it is very important to understand the economic situations in their country and their impact on company’s performance (Ni and Van Wart, 2015).

Economic Environment of Amcor Limited:

Economic environment plays most significant role in the growth and success of Amcor Limited in Australian packaging industry. Amcor Limited is operating its business operations in Australian economy that is very strong and emerged. The economy of the country is very much supportive to development of Amcor in the country. Currently, Australian economy is one of the largest mixed economy with the gross domestic product (GDP) of $1.69 trillion in the year 2017. It is the second wealthiest country after Switzerland. It is supporting the business operations of Amcor Limited (Connell, 2016). As the country has a strong economy, there is an increase in the disposable income of people so they are spending money on packaging and other products of Amcor. It contributes to sustainable development of Amcor and the communities where it operates its business. It includes different stakeholders like business groups of Amcor, Amcor co-workers and its investors.

In the country, Amcor Limited manufactures the packaging for utilization with confectionary and snacks, yoghurt and cheese, pet food products and beverage, fresh produces and rigid-plastic boxes for other brands in beverage, food, pharmaceutical, home and personal care segments. In such a strongest economy, other brands of the company are also taking benefits that are profitable for Amcor Limited. It has increased the demands of Amcor’s products that assisted the organization to create a strong cash flow and gain better financial position (Amcor Limited, 2018). The strong economy of Australia has enabled Amcor to expand its operations in over 40 nations. Thus, the demand for packaging business will continue to experience significant growth over the forecasted period. Developing economies such as Australia will drive the Amcor’s market for packaging segment with the applications across the sectors like home care, health care, retail, personal care and other industries. The market for this industry is forecasted to approach significant revenues by the year 2020. There will be a significant increase in the CAGR of the packaging industry. Thus, economic dimension of general environment has positive impact on the growth of Amcor Limited in Australia (Euromonitor International, 2018).

Specific Environment 

Another form of environment is specific environment that includes different components like groups, organizations, individuals and people with whom an organization interacts in its business (Olarewaju and Folarin, 2012). Specific environment is the environment that consists of the factors which have instant and direct impact on the performance and operations of company. It consists of the factors like groups, organizations and individuals which a company deals with. These components are such as customers, suppliers, pressure groups, regulators and competitors. In general, specific environment of the company is made of external and internal stakeholders who impact or is impacted by the attainment of its objectives. In an organization, it is very important for the managers to look at the interests and benefits of all the stakeholders (Robbins, et al, 2013).

Under specific environment, the chosen dimension is customers as they play an important role in revenue generation for any organization. Customers are the organizations and people who purchase the products from the perspective company, generally in the exchange of money. These are the people whose wants and needs affect product types which a company produces. After producing the products and services, the companies determine their targeted customers to whom it will offer its products (Greenland, Johnson and Seifi, 2016).

Customers of Amcor Limited

Amcor Limited is targeting the customers on the basis of its operational segments like segmentation by regions, segmentation by type of packaging like degradable packaging and recycled content packaging and segmentation by application like heath care, personal care, home care and food and beverages. The major target audiences of Amcor are such as raw material suppliers, manufacturers, investors, organizations in different sectors and individuals. Customers are the major players which have impact on the business operations of Amcor Limited. One of its major aspects is that it produces the packaging by considering the needs and wants of customer brands and their consumers (Ribeiro et al, 2014). The CEO of Amcor Limited stated that understanding what the customers want is the foremost and basic step. It helps the company to drive sales and streamline the costs of manufacturing in 2017/18. It considers this by conducting the interviews and focus group.

In addition to this, customers affect the business of Amcor Limited in terms of prices of its products. The major emphasis of Amcor is on product companies and different sector brands which need packaging services. Looking at the competition and customers’ interests, it needs to make changes in its pricing policies. Now, this company understands that today’s customers are very much concerned towards environment and its sources. So, Amcor uses responsible positioning to place itself in mind of customers. In this way, customers have a huge impact on the production approach of Amcor Limited (Global Initiatives, 2018). The managers of Amcor need to conduct a periodic market research so that they can understand the changing needs of customers and market trends as well.

Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility 

For today’s organizations, it is very important to meet all its responsibilities and duties towards society and its people (Robbins, et al, 2013). The community expects that the companies should not operate their business for their own benefits but they should provide benefits to them as well. This is the reason that society gets attracted towards the business which is emphasized to society and their interests. Nowadays, there are many organizations which are engaged in ethics and corporate social responsibilities so that they can enhance their brand image among society people. Corporate social responsibility is an approach which contributes to the development by providing social, environmental and economic advantages to all the stakeholders. It shows the intentions of organization to work beyond its economic and legal obligations so that they can act for the goodness of society (Carroll, 2015). This social responsibility of company includes an ethical imperative to perform these things which can make the society better. The companies need to perform their responsibilities ethically.

Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility of Amcor Limited

Being a leading organization in Australia and in other countries, Amcor Limited is very much dedicated towards its ethical and social responsibilities towards society and its people. This company knows the fact that how much corporate social responsibility is significant to survive in the market. It understands its responsibility towards employees, suppliers and shareholders. This global packaging company, Amcor Limited aims to become a leader in assisting the social and environmental initiatives in the societies in which it runs its business operations (Amcor Limited, 2018).  

Recently, this company has applied a program in Australia in order to capture the water from its manufacturing plants’ roofs and source it to local community organizations and councils (Kolk, 2016). Via this creative water collection method, Amcor was not only able to provide the solutions to environmental challenges but it has involved with the local councils, employees and community people. Additionally, in the year 2017 Amcor Limited has invested in enhancing the United Nation World Food Program packaging. This organization uses responsible sourcing practices which lead to reduced environmental effects and develop social value. It is processing its operations by utilizing the raw materials which are chosen as per the sustainable sourcing schemes and which are bio-based. In order to reduce the effect of its operations on employees, Amcor Limited has adopted care and quality program. This year, the above program has assisted the organization to reduce the hand injuries by 44% after global hand safety program (Amcor Limited, 2018).

Under its ethics and corporate social responsibility, Amcor Limited is engaged in different activities in the year 2017/18 like:

• Reducing the emission of greenhouse gas across the value chain of Amcor by decreasing the energy consumption.
• Minimizing the wastage of manufacturing operations via source reduction, recycling and reuse.
• It has provided safer conditions at workplace and approach to the resources so that they can manage and enhance the emotional and physical well-being of co-workers and factory employees.
• In order to maintain the ethics and integrity, Amcor Limited is adhering to the higher standards of the integrity and honesty and establishing an ethical behaviour’s culture.  

It shows that Amcor Limited is very much dedicated to the ethics and corporate social responsibilities (Carroll and Buchholtz, 2014). The company is able to maintain its integrity and attract more customers by working for them and their surroundings.

Culture of Organization 

The culture of an organization can be defined as the shared traditions, values and ways of performing things which affect how the organization’s candidates act. It indicates how a company interacts with its surroundings as it handles different issues. The culture of Amcor Limited is very good and positive that inspires its staff to develop innovation in their roles and jobs. The company has developed a hierarchical organizational structure under which all the employees have power to connect with the senior management so that they can clear their doubts with the top management (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015). It involves middle and lower level of management in the decision making process and it takes the recommendations from employees. It assists the company to keep motivated and satisfied and increase their morale.

In addition to this, the company has developed a culture that enhances the outcomes for their customers, people, investors and societies. Foremost, the company strives for developing safer working environment and zero injuries for its people (Hogan and Coote, 2014). For example, the EnviroAction program establishes the targets for decreased emission of greenhouse gas, water use and waste to disposal. It has engaged its diverse team and work to sector’s primary principles for integrity, health and safety, labor standards, ethical behavior and environmental management. In the workplace, the staff is allowed to talk about their ideas and opinions. Amcor’s culture shows that it offers equal opportunities to all the employees (Robbins, et al, 2013). It is working for not only for the profits of organization but for the benefits of its stakeholders.

Personal insights quiz:

Moreover, the results of Amcor’s culture can be analyzed from the below-given personal insight quiz:

Evaluation of the quiz: