...Strategic Competitiveness By: Monica Wilson Bus 499 January 14, 2014 Introduction While completing my research on Alcoa Inc. it has been an interesting history tree at a glance from when business opened to now. You’ll never know how Aluminum has been incorporated into the public eyes over the years. With this extent research, I’ll be introducing the company’s changes over the years, and how it has an impacted in today’s society. Furthermore, seeing the products from different stages has increased our abilities to use aluminum more efficient and cost saving ways. Assess how globalization and technology changes have impacted the corporation you researched? The company that I’ve researched was Alcoa Inc., they have been in business since 1888 in the Pittsburgh area which is a huge Aluminum company. The founder of this business is Charles Martin Hall. Since business has been open, Alcoa had conducted approximately 31 operations in several countries. Having the invention of Aluminum being a huge part of the economy, it has been used for several things in our daily lives. For instance, aluminum foil, beer cans, metal kettles, etc. These are materials that people use on a daily basis. With the globalization that technology has provided over the years, this is something that majority of people will use to their full advantage. Since Alcoa is an aluminum incorporated business, they’ve help the oil and gas industries drill deeper holes to gain more oil. They also have...
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...1993 Operating Cost of Aluminum plants worldwide (contains no depreciation or other charge for capital) ($/ton except where noted) Smelter Country Company Capacity (tpy) Electricity usage (kWh/t) Electricity price ($/kWh) Electricity cost ($/ton): Alumina usage (t/t Al) Alumina price ($/t Alumina) Alumina cost ($/ton): Other raw materials ($/ton) Plant power and fuel ($/ton) Consumables ($/ton) Maintenance ($/ton) Labor ($/ton) Freight ($/ton) General and administrative ($/ton) Marginal cost Total Cost (excl. Depr.) capacity marginal cost 2500.00 2000.00 1500.00 1000.00 500.00 0.00 0 5000 1 Zaporozhye Ukraine CIS 100 17 454 0,008 136,45 1,94 146,58 283,78 58,28 4,04 67,31 32,57 17,27 48,86 72,16 527,37 2 Sumgait Azerbaijan CIS 60 18 271 0,006 113,08 1,94 150,92 292,19 64,01 0,72 88,51 32,57 10,91 65,15 67,80 545,33 3 Sorocaba A Brazil Other 122 15 769 0,005 85,61 1,94 111,83 216,51 156,19 6,51 79,28 30,13 150,40 43,43 57,66 652,15 4 Sayansk Russia CIS 323 15 897 0,007 117,38 1,95 206,30 402,28 49,37 5,25 61,36 44,79 13,97 70,58 69,07 653,57 Zaporozhye Ukraine CIS 100 Sumgait Azerbaijan CIS 160 Sorocaba A Brazil Other 282 Sayansk Russia CIS 605 527,37 545,33 652,15 653,57 marginal cost marginal cost 10000 15000 20000 25000 5 Nadvoitsy Russia CIS 60 18 154 0,008 145,86 1,95 190,01 370,52 63,64 5,99 91,75 48,86 21,93 70,58 62,17 672,53 6 Irkutsk Russia CIS 260 18 974 0,006 113,31 1,95 206...
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...Crown's largest single presence outside of the United States. Also it would double the size of Crowns domestic operations. 2. How attractive is the metal container industry? (Try to use Porter's 5-forces model.) l Bargaining power of buyers The products are indifferent so it means there is low switching cost. Also buyers are very large and become more concentrated through consolidation. And they buy in large amount and maintain relationships with more than one can supplier. In addition, there can be the threat of backward integration. But metal producers are unlikely to put the threats of forward integration => High l Bargaining power of suppliers There are three largest aluminum suppliers; Alcoa, Alcan and Reynolds Metal. Aluminum is classic oligopoly dominated by Alcan and Alcoa. Reynolds may benefit from R&D synergies. Also there is a threat of forward integration. =>High l Threat of new entrants It seems that barriers to entry are low. Product differentiation and switching cost is not that high. Capital costs for three-piece can product lines are relatively low but capital costs for a two-piece can line is $20-25 million. =>moderate l Substitute There are many substitutes for metal containers- glass, plastic paper, and paper-andplastic combinations. Switching cost is low. => High l Rivalry Industry is dominated by 5 major firms. The largest is American national can (25%), Continental can (18%), Reynolds metal (7%),...
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...Summary: The Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) had a very strong value based- culture. Every decision and every action an employee made must be aligned with the company’s values. Fred Fetterolf the president of the company in 1985, decided the company needed to document the values that all employees must live by: Integrity; Environment, Health and Safety; Customer; Accountability; Excellence; People; and Profitability. Alcoa had implemented a global ethics and compliance program, and the focus on health and safety was interwoven through the company’s program. This program included all the basic elements specified in the U.S Federal Sentencing Guidelines and Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The company made it clear that the program’s tools must be understandable by all employees, must support the company’s strong value system, and must be continually reinforced by management. A normal Alcoa day started out all business meetings with an identification of exits, the evacuation plans in the event of an emergency, and other safety procedures. However, some safety procedures differed among Alcoa’s various business, corporate headquarters required all of its units to meet the same overall goal: zero work-related injuries and illnesses. Alcoa’s management team supported the ethical principal that no employees should leave work in a worse condition than when they arrived. In 1996, one of Alcoa’s Mexican facilities had deteriorated, allegations coming from activist shareholders at the annual meeting...
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...rather than unrelated ones. A response to low profit margins, excess, capacity, rising labor and RM costs. American can and insurance, failure. Analysis Portion: -Rivalry among existing firms (high), 5-6 big competitors. Reynolds Metals—>supplier route. New production tech—>Reynolds. New product design—> Ball Corp -Bargaining power of buyers (high). Top 5 soft drink companies -Bargaining power of suppliers (high)—>Alcoa, Alcan, Reynolds -Threat of Substitutes (high): plastic and glass, -Threat of New Entrants (low)—>the industry is already in long run MC. Smaller firms have been eliminated. 4Ps: -Price, rising COGS due to rise of price of alum by 15%, 65% COGS is RM. TC=7.5%, Labor=12% In house manufacturing, 55%. Consolidation of soft drink bottling. Machinery=2-piece can, 20-25 M per line, 3 piece=8,5-9M/line. Most plants 12-15 lines. -Customer. #1, Coke, #2 Anheuser-Busch, #3 Pepsi, #4 Seagram -Distribution. Manufacturer locate plants close to customer. Crown cork and seal locate plants to multiple customers (Connelly). -Suppliers. Alcoa, Alcan, Reynolds. Should invest in supplier to increase quality of products rather than diversify to other canning industries. Cuts down R&D costs and avoids basic research. Connelly: -Cut staff, reduce hq staff to 80. Reduce payroll by 24%, cut 1647 jobs -Accountability––>managers become “owner operators”,...
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...your opinion, what will be the key challenge to Alcoa’s strategic effort to meet its goal of improved safety performance? Explain. For Alcoa, the key challenges in improving their safety performance are the establishment of behavioral mindsets that embrace safety throughout their organizational layers, and a preventive culture to facilitate the continual deep-seeding of behaviors. Overcoming decades of legacy behavior around the lack of emphasis and ownership to safety is a critical step for Alcoa in establishing the desired H&S culture throughout the organization. While setting H&S standards and procedures is rudimentary, successful organizations recognize and actively engage the ground staff to intrinsically put those standards to practice and pro-actively be a contributor to evolving these standards and procedures. To help achieve these outcomes, the Alcoa employees need to develop a sense of ownership in this process and feel that success is in their hands. Behavioral change needs to start from the top – getting managers/supervisors to be champions in demonstrating a workplace behavior whereby H&S is second-nature to the way they operate rather than having to follow a bunch of rules. The management and leadership need to lead the way through demonstrating ownership and personal engagement. Below are some ideas that Alcoa could explore to help in their transformation: * Layers of management need to be aligned and continuously guide and ensure adherence...
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...COMPANY REPORT RIO TINTO ALCAN NAME: SUNDARARMAN SIVARAMAKRISHNAN CONTENT Sl PARTICULARS 1 INTRODUCTION 2. THE ALCAN COMPANY AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT 3. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE 4. STRATEGY AND PERFORMANCE OF ALCAN 5. SUPPLIERS NETWORK 6. SUSTAINABILITY LESSONS LEARNED REFERENCES [pic][pic] INTRODUCTION TO Alcan: Alcan Inc. Is a world-class leader providing innovative aluminium and packaging solutions. Alcan was founded in 1902. |In 1902, the Canadian subsidiary of Pittsburgh Reduction Company (later Alcoa) was first chartered as Northern Aluminium Company, | |Limited. | |In 1925, the company was renamed Aluminium Company of Canada, Limited (ACOC). | |In 1928, ACOC became a subsidiary of ALUMINIUM LIMITED. | |In 1945, ACOC registered the trade name ALCAN. | • Between 1960 and 1980 Alcan expanded its business and started operations in many countries. • In 1982, the company acquired British Aluminium Company. • In 1987, ACOC changed its name to Alcan Aluminium Limited and became the publicly...
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...Alcoa’s Core Values in Practice The Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) was founded in 1888 as the Pittsburgh Reduction Company. In 1907, they changed their name to Alcoa and had strong values based culture. “In 1985, Fred Fetterolf, then president, decided the company needed to document the values that all employees must live by: Integrity; Environment, Health, and Safety; Customer; Accountability; Excellence; People; and Profitability” (Lawrence & Weber, 2011, pg 137). CEO, Paul O’Neil, built this upon in the 1990’s through his communication of his belief in the importance of health and safety (Lawrence & Weber, 2011). Through the exploration of Alcoa’s Core Values in Practice an understanding of Alcoa’s ethical work climate, management’s role in the ethical climate and the ethical safeguards that support the company’s efforts will be understood. Safety is the primary concern at Alcoa, and this is important not only to their reputation but also to its employees. In the 12-month period ending in April 2009, Alcoa’s lost workday rate was 0.118. This was a stifling rate that was rapidly closing the gap with DuPont, which was considered the benchmark in safety among American companies (Lawrence & Weber, 2011). Alcoa’s ethical work climate can be classified as a combination of benevolence and principle. Barnett & Schubert (2002) explain, “The ethical climates of friendship, team interest, and social responsibility are based on benevolence” (para 12); while, “The ethical climates...
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...and weaknesses of Alcoa’s beta analysis. To calculate Alcoa’s historical beta, we used weekly adjusted stock prices for dividends and splits posted on Yahoo Finance and weekly S&P 500 index value for the same period. The beta calculated using this data was 2.06. As shown on table 1 the correlation with the S&P market is significant, that is also evident if we plot the values together in the same graph, figure 1 shows a positive relationship between the market and Alcoa stock price. Table [ 1 ]: Regression Output AA and S&P Similar to other market indicators, it’s crucial to recognize that the economic downturn of 2008, as well as the recent recovery, resulted in Alcoa’s stock price and the broad-based index in general returning numbers that were disproportionately high. In several instances, variations over 5% occurred. Especially when Alcoa rebounded as the market remained flat. A three year analysis provides results which may not be indicative of the actual beta relationship that Alcoa maintains with the index today, therefore, several steps were also taken to obtain a more short term view of Alcoa’s relationship to the market. Figure 1: Scatter plot AA and S&P500 Calculating Required Rate of Return Using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), we determined an appropriate required rate of return to be 11.47%. To determine the rate of return, a risk-free investment (T-Bond) with a maturity of 30 years and a return of 4.38% was...
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...Alcoa offers pension plans as a benefit for most US employees and certain employees in foreign locations. The pension benefit amounts depend of the length of service, job difficulty and salary. Alcoa provides a defined contribution plan to their US employees. In a defined contribution plan a company makes a contribution, but does not promise the future benefit to the employees. In this type of pension benefit the employees take on the risk instead of the company. U.S. employees hired before March 1, 2016 participate in a defined benefit plan. In a defined benefit pension plan employees know the terms of the benefit that they will earn when they retire and the company is liable to provide the employees with that benefit. Alcoa also maintains health care and life insurance postretirement benefit plans....
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...Gilberto Garcia OMIS 442 Chapter 3: Alcoa Case 1. From a strategic management standpoint, why do you think that corporate management at Alcoa delayed taking action for five years as the plant continued to lose money and deteriorate in other operational measures? I think a lot of key things might have played a role with this decision. Corporate management wanted to see what could be done and introduced new management to the plant. There were a lot of issues to be resolved such as high rates of serious injuries, poor quality control, inadequate leadership, and low morale. It would take time to implement change and establish a new organizational culture in order to turn the company around. I think they wanted to give the new management a chance to see what could be done, which would require a lot of patience. Slowly but surely, the plant would start to reduce injuries, improve morale, cut costs, and the new leadership model would begin to have full effect. Once there was success, that’s when corporate management could decide what would be done with the plant and chose whether it should continue to operate and maintain that level of success, or close down and liquidate everything. 2. What type of leadership style did Simonic seem to follow? Does it fit any of the leadership theories that were developed in this chapter? I think Simonic followed the Transformational Leadership style. He had a lot of charismatic characteristics and was inspirational. Other management even said...
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...Reaction Summary: Workplace Safety at Alcoa In your opinion, what will be the key challenge to Alcoa's strategic effort to meet its goal of improved safety performance? Explain. There are many obstacles in front of Alcoa in its improvements of Safety. First of all, aluminum operations throughout the US had high injury rates. Alcoa has no peer models in the industry to follow. If Alcoa wants to improve its safety rates, it has to make extra efforts all by itself, despite the fact that peer companies are using different rules. Also, objections from line workers add a lot of pressure on implementing safety policies. However, different coworkers have distinct reasons to object. Some of the line workers are afraid of being laughed at by their coworkers when they follow new safety regulations. Workers don’t all understand the necessity of a new regulation at the beginning, so they feel easier to reject new rules. Some experienced workers refuse to follow new regulations because they are using their experience to judge all kinds of possibilities in work. They’ve never had accidents in the past, so it’s hard for them to adopt new regulations. Besides these two reasons, there are cultural norms and emotions. Workers may know it’s easier to get injured when they wear rings. However, cultures and emotions hold them back from safety concerns. Alcoa’s management also needs enhancement to meet with its safety expectations. Merton found workers have lax attitude within the...
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...Security Analysis Alcoa and Arcelor Mittal Economic Analysis TheUnited States, despite its previous struggles, still finds itself as the most powerful economy in the world with a per capita GDP of $46,000. The United State’s is able to maintain its lead largely in part to the country’s market oriented economy. Currently, the President, in conjunction with government is attempting to bring the United States out of the contraction that plagued the economy for the past few years. The global economic downturn in 2008, spurred by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and investment failures played a significant role in a GDP contraction rivaled only by the Great Depression. With the onset of technology over the past decade, the United States economy now stands witness to a “two-tier labor market”.This type of market implies that those on the bottom of the market lack the professional/technical skills that their counterparts possess.Those who are in the upper-half have seen the majority of the gains in household income since 1975. This imbalance with the average household income failing to match the inflation rate put the economy in dire need of relief. In 2008 President Barrack Obama issued an asset relief program to help calm the fire. This relief came in form of the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP). The program issued 700 Billion in relief to help the economy in October of 2008. In addition to the TARP program, Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection...
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...FINANCIAL ANALYSIS PROJECT ON ALCOA INCORPORATED Dr. Margaret Garcia Associate Professor of Finance Saint Francis University FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF ALCOA INC. FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF ALCOA INC. By Adedotun (Tosin) Adeluyi Senior, Accounting, Finance, and Management Information System Majors Saint Francis School of Business February 22, 2011 Current Events The history of Alcoa Incorporated can be traced back to Charles Martin Hall’s discovery of finding a feasible way of commercially extracting aluminum. He received a patent for the discovery in 1889 (“Alcoa Celebrates 120 years”, 2011, pp. 4). Since this period, the corporation improved and has undergone various structural and organizational changes. In 1888, Alcoa was incorporated as ‘The Pittsburgh Reduction Company’ and in 1908, the name was changed to ‘Aluminum Company of America’, which it remained till it was officially shortened to ‘Alcoa’ in 1999 (“Alcoa Celebrates 120 years”, 2011, pp. 3). Moreover, in 1928, Alcoa moved most of the activities it had been conducting outside the United States into Alean, a Canadian company, making Alean legally independent (Matthias Kipping and Ludovic Cailluet, 2010, par. 2). In 2008, Alcoa sold its packaging business which had accounted for more than 10% of its sales to Rank Group, and in 2009, it sold its wire harness and electrical distribution business to Platinum Equity (Alcoa History, Hoovers, par.1). Alcoa and other aluminum companies have run into...
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...newest staff member of Alcoa Chiropractic, it's also literally true. The daughter of a chiropractor, this Florida native was raised in Hancock County in upper East Tennessee, and is both the embodiment of a passionate healthcare professional and a life-long beneficiary of the medicine she now practices. “I was actually adjusted before birth when my mom was given a chiropractic adjustment by my father,” Dr. Palmer explains with a laugh, “and as an infant and throughout my childhood we received regular chiropractic well-checks just like we would get regular checkups at the family doctor,” noting that her brother also...
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