Contemporary Organisations Essay: Comparison Between Fonterra & Westpac
Question
Task: Write a contemporary organisations essay comparing two organizations namely Fonterra and Westpac.
Answer
Introduction
In the contemporary organisations,the employees have the authority and power to make important decisions and execute changes. In this contemporary organisations essay, Fonterra and Westpac are selected to describe their scale, size, service offerings, customer segments and the industry in which they operate. The purpose of this study is to develop an in-depth knowledge of practices and processes which associated with organisational structures, finance, marketing, and people management. Dissimilarities between these two organisations will be discussed in this contemporary organisations essay. Further, the workflows and roles required for the Fonterra and the Westpac Company’s operations will also be described in this contemporary organisations essay.
Difference between the two organisations
a. Size
Fonterra is a multinational dairy company. Fonterra has approximately 21,400 employees andthe company has many subsidiary businesses which are Mainland Cheese, Anlene, Anmum, Anchor and Sorprole (Fonterra.com.nz, 2020).
The research on contemporary organisations essaysignifies that Westpac is one of the oldest banking organisations and financial service providers in Australia.The Westpac has more than 40,000 employees with 14 million customers (Fargher 2019).
b. Scale
The Fonterra is accountable for around 30 percent of dairy exports in the world. The company operates in Chile, Australia and New Zealand (Fonterra.com.nz 2020).
Westpac has operated in different location across the world. The company operates in different branches of Australia, Asia, New Zealand, Unites States, United Kingdom and Pacific Island countries. The company has branches in China, India, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Industry context outlined in the contemporary organisations essay
The Fonterra company operates its business in dairy, manufacturing and retail industry.
The Westpac operates its business in banking and financial service sector.
Service offering
The Fonterra offers different dairy products such as butter, cheese, milk, custard yogurt, Greek yogurt and ice cream (Fonterra 2020).
The Westpachas four consumer-facing division, core support division, group technology division and treasury division. These divisions offer professional services for trade finance, cashflow finance, treasury, asset finance, syndicate and foreign exchange solutions, finance loans, equipment and automotive finance and property finance. The company provides a variety of banking products and financial services to their customers.
c. Consumer segments
The Fonterra manufactures and supplies their consumer products in approximately 50 countries. The company has targeted the children, older people and women to provide functional proteins, extra-stretch cheese, high-spec milk powder, and medical-grade lactose (Fonterra 2020). Further, the bakeries, cafes, and restaurants of the New Zealand also used the Fonterra dairy products.
The Westpac has more than 14 million consumers in different countries. The Westpac provides different banking services to small-to-medium and micro enterprises, Private Wealth customers and commercial business in Australia (Westpac.com.au 2020). The financial services and products of the company are delivered to corporate, commercial, government and institutional customers.
d. The value the companies provide
The Fonterra is committed:
- to provide the nutritious products to the customer
- to make nutritious and delicious food for the community
The values of Westpac are integrity, courage, service, achievement and one team. Integrity represents the ethical behaviour of the company.
- The company is committed to help the customers and deliver excellence results.
- The Westpac is dedicated to work together to find solution.
- Strong customer franchise is one of the major values of the organisation.
Accomplishing values
The Fonterra has more than 18 years of experience in the dairy industry. The Fonterrais able to achieve the values by following the nutritious guidelines and using the resources wisely to regenerate nature (Fonterra 2020). The company work with local and national governments for manufacturing and sellingthe nutritious products daily.
The Westpac has 40 years of experience in banking sector which helps them to accomplish the value of the company. The company has developed customer focused plan supports the company’s value which are embedded in the culture of the company. To achieve this, the company has prioritised their activities. With the help of strategic priorities, the company is able to deliver the values (Westpac.com.au 2020).
What are the roles and workflows of the companies examined in the contemporary organisations essay?
Activities the two organisations need to engage in
The Fonterra is operated by more than 10,500 farmers of New Zealand. The company is manufacturing, marketing and supplying their dairy products in different parts of the world (Harvey 2018). The Fonterra also managesconsumer bank, global sales, finance and administration in order to deliver excellence results.
The Westpac is developing new services to secure the customer banking transactions. The company is also investing in businesses and developing strategic partnership. The business activities of the Westpac maintain transparency and protect the interest of the stakeholders. The companyis also dealing with the customers fairly.
Types of people with skill required for these two companies
The Fonterra provides various job opportunities to the people in different section of the company including marketing, on farm, general management, support and admin, human resources management, manufacturing, information system, supply chain and so on. Therefore, different types of people are required for this company with certain skills such as tanker drivers, forklift operators, digital manager, e-commerce manager, brand manager and so on (McGiven 2016). The company recruits their employees across the world. The employees of the Fonterra should be flexible to work in shift patterns.
The Westpacprovide various career opportunities to the people such as system engineer, project manager, architect, change manager, business analyst and so on (Comino 2017). To join the Westpac, the individuals should have certain basic skills which are strong verbal and written communication skill, strong concentration skill and basic computer skill.
Roles, responsibilities and reporting relationships of two companies
The management team of the Fonterrahas the responsibilities to manage the farmer engagement and services, milk sourcing and operation of the retail stores in New Zealand and Australia. The employees and leaders are responsible for market and customer development and product distribution.
The Westpac has board of directors, committee members and executive team who are responsible for maintain the financial market, organisational culture and so on. The customer-facing division of the Westpac supported the company’s customers and provide financial solutions as well as solve their issues. The employees and project managers are responsible for transactional banking and handle the supply and trade chain finance (Wright and Kehoe 2011).
Workflow planning, organisation, coordination and management
It is identified in the contemporary organisations essaythat the Fonterra focus on detailed workflow planning and include contingencies. The management team includes the process, people and equipment in the workflow planning. All the Fonterra employees are properly trained to make decision on their own (De Witt 2019). The Fonterra follows their Code of Business Conduct in order to make the right decision and protect the company’s reputation.
The senior and board management of the Westpac company plan the workflow and organise the responsibilities of the project manager and team leader. The management team distributes the tasks to the employees.
Reviewing organisational structures
Structured followed by the two companies
The Fonterra follows cooperative organisational structure. In this organisational structure outlined in the contemporary organisations essay, the earnings and profits produced by the company are spread among the company’s members. The officers and board of directors run the company. According to Gonzalez(2017), in the cooperative organisational structure, any individuals can become the members of the company by buying shares of the company. The Fonterra is operated by more than 10,500 farmers of New Zealand. John Monaghan is the present chairperson of the company.
The Westpac follows the functional organisationalstructure. According to D?wigo?(2017), the functional organisational structure divides the company into departments on the basis of their function. The chairman of the Westpac is Lindsay Maxsted. Peter King is the Acting CEO of the company and Gary Thursby is the Acting CFO of the company. The Westpac organisation’s departments have functional manager to control the department.
The reasons why the two companies are designed the way they are The Fonterra follows the cooperative organisational structure in order to minimise the costs within the business and improve services and products. The company is able to get discounts on services and materials for their sizes. The company explored in the present context of contemporary organisations essay is a contemporary organisation where the employees have the power to make decisions. The employees from the traditional companies are supposed to implement the orders of the higher authority (Bovee and Thill, 2017).
The Westpacfollows the functional organisational structure in order to achieve high performance (Vincent 2016). The company is able to expand the business by grouping the employees based on skills and knowledge. Apart from Functional structure of the organisation considered herein contemporary organisations essay, Westpac follows Scientific Management which is associated with pioneering and emphasizing the productivity of the individual employees. Scientific Management is associated with Fredrick Taylor. It emphasizes the work of individual employees and Westpac provides concentration on most appropriate employees. Scientific Management provides importance on standardized method of task performance and scientific Management introduces procedures including task completion times and financial (bonus) incentives to motivate staff (Su 2017). Westpac makes breakdown of tasks into smallest unit and task simplification where appropriate.
Conclusion
The contemporary organisations considered in the contemporary organisations essay have unique organisational structurein which they focus on empowering the employees. The employees have the freedom to execute important decisions and make transformations within the organisations. Further, the workflows and roles required for these two organisation’s operations are also described in this contemporary organisations essay. Organisational structures of both Fonterra and Westpac help the organisations and all the employees understanding the official reporting relationship which may govern the work process and workflow. The outline of the organizational structure helps in easier way to get the work done.
Reference List
Bovee C and Thill, J 2017. Chapter 8: Organization & Teamwork, in Business in Action. Pearson. New York.
Comino, V., 2019.Westpac scandal.Contemporary organisations essayRoutledge. De Witt, M., 2017. Discretion in Decision Making: The Fonterra Case. Pearson.
D?wigo?, H., 2017. Organisational structure within the process of organisation management. Journal of Management. (7), p.172.
Fargher, I.K., 2019. How Westpac is alleged to have broken anti-money laundering laws 23 million times. Routledge.
Fonterra. 2020. About. [online] Available at:
Gonzalez, R.A., 2017. Going back to go forwards? From multi-stakeholder cooperatives to Open Cooperatives in food and farming. Journal of Rural Studies, 53, pp.278-290.
Harvey, T., 2018.Independent report on how Fonterra estimates risk in setting milk price. Fonterra Published.
McGiven, A., 2016. The future opportunities and challenges for one of the world‘s largest dairy export firms: Fonterra in New Zealand. Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 18(3), pp.12-23.
Su, Y., 2017. Taylor scientific management theory carding and significance of organization management. Social Sciences, 6(4), pp.102-107.
Vincent, J., 2016. Westpac Banking Corporation v Wittenberg (2016) 330 ALR 476. Brief, 43(11), p.21.
Westpac.com.au. 2020. Home. [online] Available at:
Wright, P and Kehoe, R 2011, Human resource practices and organizational commitment.A deeper examination in Asian pacific journal of human resource.Contemporary organisations essay46(1), 12-23.
