Issues of new management and ownership - Free Essay Example

After the company merged with Mittal steel it is renamed as ArcelorMittal. Lakshmi Mittal the owner of Mittal steel became the Chairman of ArcelorMittal. The merger of Arcelor with Mittal steel made ArcelorMittal the worldwide leader in steel industry by increasing its bargaining power by the consumers and suppliers. The new management and board had brought new Mission, Vision and Goals. Its goal Is to provide the leadership that will transform tomorrows steel industry. Benchmarking Since the merger in 2006 AM leads in the steel industry not only economically but also in applying innovative processes in the production line such as ULCOS(Ultra Low CO2 Steelmaking) and PVD(Physical Vapor Deposition) for reducing CO2 produced from its units. It has developed lot of Research Developments units for the development of the technology and sophistication in steel production. It has been the leading steel industry till date since its merger in 2006. With the take over ArcelorMittal has increased its operations and production to a great extent and became the market leader gaining international reputation and demand. It has made use of the previous resources and the abundance of man power to gain advanced and robust output. Some of the strengths the company has gained since the changes are strong clients, high level of integration, sophisticated infrastructure and technology. The company has set a new vision of Sustainability, Quality and Leadership. Social Perspective In the social perspective ArcelorMittal has given huge significance for the health and safety of its employees as most of them would be working in mines and blast furnaces. It created lot of environmental awareness through its campaigns and promotions. It created its own brand name in the global market in terms of its quality, products and services. It has gained clients appreciation and offered its production and services to some of the famous brands in the world such as Ford, Volkswagen, Peugeot, Citroen, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, John Deere, Caterpillar, Whirlpool Electrolux. It has expanded its distribution networks over the years The standards of the company were specifically looked into with the future needs of the customers and clients in mind. Employment Perspective ArcelorMittal extended its commitment beyond the bottom line, to include the people it invests in and the communities it supports. ArcelorMittal continually seeks to attract and nurture the best people to deliver superior solutions to its customers. Its workforce is its major strength which kept the company the leader in the market since its evolution. Accountability, Open communication, Empowerment and Continuous Improvement being its vision for its employees proved that its the best place to be and work. ArcelorMittal has 326,000 employees around the world. 57% of that (186,000) working in Europe and UK. The primary focus for Human Resources at ArcelorMittal going forward is talent management. Developing the skills of its employees is an integral part of the ArcelorMittals vision to be the most admired steel institution in the world. Enabling employees at all levels to contribute to the best of their ability is the duty of any good employer. It provides various development pro grammes for its employees like The Business Leaders Programme and Group Engineering Programme for the development of the existing workforce. These programmes combine several rounds of internal and external training with a continuous review process designed to identify and develop a long-term pool of talent. Its matchless access to market intelligence, leadership in technological advanced products, operational turnaround and improvement capabilities it provides evidence that it possess broadest and deepest knowledge pool. Financial Perspective Since the merger there were many rumours that the company would falter in its future. But ArcelorMittal has proved that those rumours were wrong with its robust financial stability, balance sheet and capital market scale for access to funds.Its Sales has increased immensely last year which were not that good compared to the previous years since the merger. Culture Change With the change in culture the company successfully managed its workforce and operations. It is really hard to align the new culture and strategies vision and mission to such a large organisation but the effective leadership and flow of communication it became possible to stay ahead in the race by transmitting the new values and culture to the whole segments of the company. Competition With the increase in demand for steel a lot of companies compete to stay in the market. This led to the competition from various aspects of production and innovation. In spite of high competition since the merger ArcelorMittal managed to stay firm with its innovation and quality in production. It created a brand value which led to a stable base and the foundation of Arcelor helped in achieving that stability. Recession The economic downturn early this year has led to the decline in demand for the steel. The company has not come across this situation before which is a complete new experience or phase where it has to cut lot of jobs and make its staff redundant. It had close to some of its production units and blast furnaces which led to a complete chaos. In this turbulent situation the substitutes tried to take over but with the strong loyalty of ArcelorMittals customers kept the company still going in spite of strong opposition by its employees during the recession and the process of redundancy. The strong systems, strategies, and structure of the organisation with effective management and leadership ArcelorMittal withstood all the hurdles that it came across and stayed stable in the market. During the turbulent times of recession ArcelorMittal made drastic changes in the structure of the company by downsizing the workforce and the production units. Thousands of workforces who have been mad e redundant rebelled against the company through strikes and lockouts. But it was inevitable for the company to take the decision of cutting jobs and restructuring to reduce costs. In spite of the chaos created by the economic downturn the company managed to bare the opposition by gradually retaining its best workforce as the economy recovered from the blow. It provided voluntary leaves for the employees till the economic situation gets better. Acelor being taken over by Indian management managed to stay as the number one in the steel industry in the UK and around the world. The CEO of ArcelorMittal charted as the richest man in the UK still. It shows how successful the company has become financially and robust in the quality of workforce and production. The foundation of the company being strong has become an advantage for ArcelorMittal to stay solid even though it has made changes in to structure and management. Change Change plays a prominent role in any organisation and how well it is dealing and managing the change. It is vital for any company to look deep into every aspect carefully and follow up when change happens. ArcelorMittal has exactly done the same by transforming its change to all its workforce by showing them the insight into future. It proved them the stability of the company by its every action and reaction. Motivation and commitment to its employees, customers and stakeholders are some of the major strengths ArcelorMittal has put forth to stabilize its grounds. With its excellent change management, succession planning, best practices, sophistication in technology, demand for the brand, restructuring, development of RD increasing employment opportunities for the best and skilled technical workforce and able to survive in the worst case scenarios since last five years ArcelorMittal has set an example for the upcoming and growing companies on how to manage change in culture, economy , structure and management. Most of the changes in ArcelorMittal being upgrading and renovating and adding advancement and betterment to its every segment of business became successful and market leader. Task 19.2.b Define quality audit systems/practice and how it will be implemented to manage and monitor qualityÂÂ  standards specified by the organisation and process operated Quality Audit Charles Albert Mills defines Quality Audit as a management tool used to evaluate confirm or verify activities related to quality. A properly conducted quality audit is a positive and constructive practice According to the International Standard Organisation(ISO 8402-1986) Quality Audit is a systematic and independent examination to determine whether quality activities and related results comply with the planned arrangements and whether these arrangements are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve objectives A systematic and logical process of evaluating and reviewing the process, practices and activities related to the maintenance of quality is called as the Quality Audit systems practice. It is vital for any organisation to identify if it needs a quality system process or not based on its size and field of business. Unilever For a huge company like Unilever it is essential for it to have a quality audit systems practice as it is involved in manufacturing of consumer goods and products. Unilever continuously strives for sustainability and in the quality of their productions and operations. With the advancement in technology now their are a lot of software based quality audit systems in the market. Unilever is planning to use a similar software based quality audit system in place that will allow the company to quantify the progress. Although there are a lot of software enabled systems of audit practice every organisations quality generally follows certain methods. The following are some of them Quality Sample Quality audit review Quality Inspection Quality survey Quality scrutinies Unilever has got a audit committee which reviews it overall approach to its operations, risks, control, process, outcomes disclosures. It also has got external auditors who conduct a formal evaluation of t he effectiveness of the audit process. Unilever carefully looks into all the areas to ensure the quality standards such as review of accounting principles, review of the analysis obtained, business risks and positive assurance on operating controls and positive assurance on operating controls, corporate policies, review of business risks and safe guards. Monitoring and resolution of complaints, review of application of information and communication technology. A detailed and scrutinised analysis an error rectification and review is done periodically in a systematic and logical process is done at unilever which makes it unique in meeting the standards of its quality and operations.