Assignment

on
Strategic Management Practice in ACI Limited
Course Title: Strategic Human Resource Management
Course Code: HRM-624

Submitted To
Mr. Md. Rabiul Islam Rabi
Assistant Professor
Department of Business Administration
Bangladesh Islami University. (BIU)

Submitted By
Md. Mohiminul Islam Shanto
ID: MBAFM43201305
Program: MBA
Batch: 43rd
Department: Business Administration
Semester: Summer

Date of Submission: 06-10-2020

Bangladesh Islami University. (BIU)

 Table of Contents

Sl. No. Particulars Page No.

1 Introduction 3
2 Overview of the Company 3-5
2.1 Background 3
2.2 Mission 4

2.3 Vision 4
2.4 Values 4-5
3 Strategic Management practice of ACI Limited 5-11
3.1 Strategic Plan of ACI 5-6
3.2 Strategic Business Units 6-7
3.3 Hierarchy Level of Strategy 7-10
3.4 Competitor profiling 10-11
3.5 Competitor analysis 11
3.6 Core Competencies 11
4 Conclusion 11-12

2|Pag e
1. Introduction
ACI was established as the subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in the then East
Pakistan in 1968. After independence the company has been incorporated in Bangladesh on
the 24th of January 1973 as ICI Bangladesh Manufacturers Limited and also as Public
Limited Company. This Company also obtained listing with Dhaka Stock Exchange on 28
December, 1976 and its first trading of shares took place on 9 March, 1994. Later on 5 May,
1992, ICI plc divested 70% of its shareholding to local management. Subsequently the
company was registered in the name of Advanced Chemical Industries Limited. Listing with
Chittagong Stock Exchange was made on 22 October 1995.

2. Overview of the Company

2.1. Background

ACI Limited was established as the subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in the
then East Pakistan in 1968. After independence, the company was incorporated in
Bangladesh in 1973 as ICI Bangladesh Manufacturers limited as a Public Limited Company.
In 1992, the company was divested to local management and the name of the company
changed to Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI) Limited. ACI inherited the rich ICI culture
of product quality, customer service and social responsibility. Initially in 1992, ACI started
primarily with pharmaceutical business with a turnover of BDT 80 million only but later the
new management brought about fundamental changes in the policies and in the year 2008
turnover grew to over BDT 7,365 million. The Company has diversified business interest in
pharmaceuticals, agricultural including fishery & livestock and consumer brands. At present,
ACI has three strategic business units along with 11 subsidiaries, 3 joint ventures and 1
associate. ACI is a fast growing conglomerate that has substantial contribution in the
economy of Bangladesh. In response to growing demands of the consumers of Bangladesh,
ACI has diversified its business to include wide range of products in its portfolio. ACI has
started its expansion policy by exploring and strengthening the pharmaceuticals wing further
so that it can continue giving unswerving service to the consumers of Bangladesh. ACI is the
first company in Bangladesh to achieve ISO S001 in 1995 for quality management and also
the first company to achieve ISO 14000 in 2000 for environmental management system. ACI
is also the first company from Bangladesh to become the honourable member of United
Nation Global Compact. It is the only Bangladeshi company which was declared as a notable
COP (Communication on Progress) recognized by UNGC (United Nation Global Compact).

3|Pag e
ACI has been accepted as a founding member of community of Global Growth Companies by
the World Economic Forum which is the most prestigious business networking organization
in the world.

2.2. Mission
ACI’s mission is to enrich the quality of life through responsible application of knowledge,
skills and technology. ACI is committed to the pursuit of excellence through world-class
products, innovative processes and empowered employees, to provide the highest level of
satisfaction to its customers.

2.3. Vision

 Endeavour to attain a position of leadership in each category of their businesses.

 Attain a high level of productivity in all their operations through effective and
efficient use of resources, adoption of appropriate technology and alignment with
their core competencies.
 Developing their employees by encouraging empowerment and rewarding innovation.
 Promoting an environment for learning and personal growth of their employees.
 Providing products and services of high and consistent quality, ensuring value for
money to its customers.
 Encouraging and assisting in the qualitative improvement of the services of its
suppliers and distributors.
 Establishing harmonious relationship with the community and promote greater
environmental responsibility within its sphere of influence.

2.4. Values

● Quality: ACI always strive to provide the best possible quality for their products and
services in order to meet and exceed customer’s expectation.

● Customer Focus: ACI’s main focus is always their customers. They are always to
provide the finest products and services to their customers in order to attract and retain
customers.

4|Pag e
 ● Fairness: ACI always attempts to maintain fairness in what they do and produce. This
helped them to gain customer’s faith and confidence and also to operate successfully in
the market with their competitors.

● Transparency: ACI maintains transparency by providing the desired goods and

services to their customers and sharing their goals with their employees.

● Continuous Improvement: ACI always attempts to make improvements in their

products and services in order to meet customer’s demands and cope with the current
trend. In this way, they are able to compete successfully in the market in comparison to
others providing the similar kind of products and services.

3. Strategic Management practice of ACI Limited

3.1. Strategic Plan of ACI
The Entrepreneurs and business managers of ACI are often so preoccupied with immediate
issues that they lose sight of their ultimate objectives. That's why a business review or
preparation of a strategic plan is a virtual necessity. This may not be a recipe for success, but
without it a business is much more likely to fail. A sound plan should:
 Serve as a framework for decisions or for securing support/approval.
 Provide a basis for more detailed planning.
 Explain the business to others in order to inform, motivate & involve.
 Assist benchmarking & performance monitoring.
 Stimulate change and become building block for next plan.
A strategic plan should not be confused with a business plan. The former is likely to be a
(very) short document whereas a business plan is usually a much more substantial and
detailed document. A strategic plan can provide the foundation and frame work for a business
plan. For more information about business plans, refer to How to Write a Business Plan,
Insights into Business Planning and Free-Plan: Business Plan Guide & Template.
A strategic plan is not the same thing as an operational plan. The former should be visionary,
conceptual and directional in contrast to an operational plan which is likely to be shorter
term, tactical, focused, implementable and measurable. As an example, compare the process
of planning a vacation (where, when, duration, budget, who goes, how travel are all strategic

5|Pag e
issues) with the final preparations (tasks, deadlines, funding, weather, packing, transport and
so on are all operational matters).

3.2. Strategic Business Units

 Pharmaceuticals
 Consumer Brands & Commodity Products
 Agribusinesses:
o Crop Care Public Health
o Livestock & Fisheries
o Fertilizer
o Seeds

Pharmaceuticals
ACI carries the legacy of ICI- world renowned British Multinational in providing the people
of Bangladesh with quality medicines and healthcare products. Its state-of-the art
pharmaceutical plant represents Bangladesh's quest for a truly world class manufacturing
facility. ACI's rich heritage leads to innovative and higher value added formulations.
The comprehensive product range of ACI pharmaceuticals include products from all major
therapeutic classes and in various dosage forms like tablet, capsule, dry powder, liquid,
cream, gel, ointment, ophthalmic and inject able. ACI Parma also has state of the art plant on
Novel Drug Delivery System (NDDS). It produces world class Modified Release drug and
medicine to cater the requirement of pharmaceutical manufacturer of domestic and
international market. It exports high quality pharmaceuticals to a good number of countries of
Asia, Africa & South America.

Consumer Brands & Commodity Products

The Consumer Brands Division boasts in having an unequivocal presence in consumers' heart
with the market leading brands like ACI Aerosol, ACI Mosquito Coil, Savlon. These are the
persistent performers in keeping the household clean and free from germs and harmful
insects. The necessity of pure food in the minds of Bangladeshi consumers especially in the
commodity food business has pushed ACI to fill up the market gap by producing commodity

6|Pag e
products such as Salt, Flour and Spices. Now the customers of Bangladesh are ensured with
100% pure Salt, Spices products and Wheat products under the brand name of "ACI Pure".
ACI also represents the world renowned product range of Colgate, Nivea, Tetley, and Godrej
& Dabur in Bangladesh through distribution and forming joint ventures.

Agribusinesses
ACI Agribusiness is the largest integrator in Bangladesh in Agriculture, Livestock and
Fisheries and deals with Crop Protection, Seed, Fertilizer, Agro machineries, and Animal
Health products. These businesses have glorified presence in Bangladesh.
CC & PH supplies crop protection chemicals, Seed supplies Hybrid Rice, vegetable and
Maize seeds, Fertilizer Supplies Micronutrient and Foiler fertilizer, Agri machineries supplies
Tractors, Power Tiller and Harvester and Animal Health supplies high quality Nutritional,
Veterinary and Poultry medicines and vaccines. ACI Agribusiness is having strong
partnership with national and international R & D companies, universities and research
institutions. Before introducing any product, it is elaborately tested in the laboratory and
farmers field. ACI provides solution to the farmers through a large team of scientists &
skilled professionals.

3.3. Hierarchy Level of Strategy

Functional Level Strategy
The functional level of the organization is the level of the operating divisions and
departments. ACI Limited follows different type in strategies for different department. The
strategic issues at the functional level are related to business processes and the value chain.
Functional level strategies in marketing, finance, operations, human resources, and R&D
involve the development and coordination of resources through which business unit level
strategies can be executed efficiently and effectively.
 They adopt flexible manufacturing technologies, upgrade the skills of employees
through training and perform research and development function to design products
that are easy to manufacture.
 The products of ACI are more familiar to the customer, so the company tries to
innovate new product and modify the existing product for customer attractiveness.

7|Pag e
  They continuously innovate products, promotional activities, packaging and
distribution. This way they can respond quickly to customer demands.

Functional units of an organization are involved in higher level strategies by providing input
into the business unit level and corporate level strategy, such as providing information on
resources and capabilities on which the higher level strategies can be based. Once the higher-
level strategy is developed, the functional units translate it into discrete action-plans that each
department or division must accomplish for the strategy to succeed.

Business Level Strategy

ACI is the popular manufacturer company that has get their success by following different
business strategies. Through the business level strategy the company present a division,
product line, or other profit center that can be planned independently from the other business
units of the firm. At the business unit level, the strategic issues are less about the coordination
of operating units and more about developing and sustaining a competitive advantage for the
goods and services that are produced. At the business level, the strategy formulation phase
deals with:
 ACI always determine their positioning in the business against rivals
 Anticipating changes in demand and technologies and adjusting the strategy to
accommodate them
 The company tries to influence the nature of competition through strategic actions
such as vertical integration and through political actions such as lobbying.
 Using product features or services
 Increase market share by expanding the network Functional Level Strategies
 Focus is on efficiency, quality, innovation, and customer responsiveness.
 Focus on After Sales Service Human Resource

Corporate Level Strategy

ACI Ltd. always give emphasis on Corporate level strategy that is concerned with the
selection of businesses in which the company should compete and with the development and
coordination of that portfolio of businesses.

8|Pag e
ACI carries out the following corporate strategies:

 Defining the issues that are corporate responsibilities; these might include identifying
the overall goals of the corporation, the types of businesses in which the corporation
should be involved, and the way in which businesses will be integrated and managed.
 Defining where in the corporation competition is to be localized. Take the case of
insurance: In the mid-1990's, Aetna as a corporation was clearly identified with its
commercial and property casualty insurance products. The conglomerate Textron was
not. For Textron, competition in the insurance markets took place specifically at the
business unit level, through its subsidiary, Paul Revere.

Global Level Strategies:

 ACI Limited is using multi domestic strategies because it expanded its telecom
business under different countries with different name.
 Provides different strategies for different countries depend on the people demands
Corporate Level Strategies.
 Vertically integrated and concentrated on other field.
 They import the raw materials from the places where it is less costly, thus achieve
location economy.

Strategy Evaluation
Now as against the objectives, if we go through all the strategies being mentioned earlier,
then we can see that all strategies are true reflection of the objectives being targeted by ACI
Limited. As an objective of consumer connectivity, responsive supply chain getting on line
computer network with suppliers and more stronger R&D department and the objective of
cost efficiency is supported by the vertical diversification in an sense that how they are
outsourcing production and going for sub contracting with their suppliers and having more
responsive and cost effective supply chain and to achieve growth more focused strategy in
case of reduction of brands, etc. So these strategies are true measures to achieve those
objectives.
1. Suitability

2. Acceptability

3. Feasibility

9|Pag e
Suitability
Suitability is a broad assessment of whether the strategy addresses the circumstances in
which the organization is operating. For example, the extent to which the strategy would fit
with the future trends / changes in the environment or how the strategy might exploit the core
competencies of the organization. Now if we evaluate the strategy of Uniliver Limited on
these factors that whether the strategies fit with its existing circumstances would able to
compete with the future trends like the strategy of cost reduction and focused brands and
outsourcing production and consumer connectivity and more responsive value chain.

Acceptability
Acceptability of strategy is concerned with the expected performance outcomes such as the
returns and risk if the strategies are implemented and the extent to which it would be in line
with the expectations of the stakeholders. In case of returns, it’s pretty much assured that
returns would definitely be enhanced when the cost would decrease and strategies would
result in better quality products. But the elements of risk are there which could be quite
significant in the case of subcontracting, whether the suppliers would be able to meet the
quality standards or not.

Feasibility
Feasibility is concerned with whether the strategy could be made to work in practice or not.
And it’s more concerned with the assessment of practicalities of resourcing and strategic
capabilities i.e. quantitative assessment, which is beyond the scope of this report, so, as an
overview, all strategies seems feasible and some of them has already been implemented as
well like the reduction in brands etc.

3.4. Competitor profiling

The strategic rationale of competitor profiling is powerfully simple. Superior knowledge of rivals offers a
legitimate source of competitive advantage. The raw material of competitive advantage consists of offering
superior customer value in the firm’s chosen market. The definitive characteristic of customer value is the
adjective, superior. Customer value is defined relative to rival offerings making competitor knowledge an
intrinsic component of corporate strategy. Profiling facilitates this strategic objective in three important ways.
First, profiling can reveal strategic weaknesses in rivals that the firm may exploit. Second, the proactive stance
of competitor profiling will allow the firm to anticipate the strategic response of their rivals to the firm’s

10 | P a g e
planned strategies, the strategies of other competing firms, and changes in the environment. Third, this
proactive knowledge will give the firms strategic agility. Offensive strategy can be implemented more quickly
in order to exploit opportunities and capitalize on strengths. Similarly, defensive strategy can be employed
more deftly in order to counter the threat of rival firms from exploiting the firm’s own weaknesses.

3.5. Competitor analysis

Competitor analysis in marketing and management is an assessment of the strengths and
weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and
defensive strategic context through which to identify opportunities and threats. Competitor
profiling coalesces all of the relevant sources of competitor analysis into one framework in
the support of efficient and effective strategy formulation, implementation, monitoring and
adjustment. Competitor analysis is an essential part of corporate strategy. It is argued that
most firms do not conduct this type of analysis systematically enough. Instead, many
enterprises operate on what is called “informal impressions, conjectures, and intuition gained
through the tidbits of information about competitors every manager continually.

3.6. Core Competencies

There are many ACI products that exist in the Bangladesh and overseas market. Among this
product some product achieves the better position for quality product.
 The Savlon antiseptic cream that take the greater position in the whole market in
Bangladesh. There are no alternative and competitor of this product.
 ACI aerosol and aci coal are also attractive to the customer for better quality and
reasonable price.
 The agribusiness department is the height profitable sector of ACI for its good seed,
tractor other machineries.

4. Conclusion
The flourishment of any organization requires combined efforts and co-operation from
several parties. Social, political and macroeconomic environment play pivotal role in this
regard. But taking human resource division the company’s betterment purpose the report
surely suggest about structuring it’s employee management tactics for optimizing cost,
improving performance of its work force. The framework of business laws and legal

11 | P a g e
procedures should facilitate in managing employee performance in a timely and cost effective
manner. In Bangladesh, the establishment of a market driven private system is linked to
achieving higher employment, increased productivity, more efficient use of resources and
more rapid economic growth. But the ACI Limited still faces extreme challenges competing
with other multinational companies. ACI Agribusiness is contributing the country and serving
the nation in different ways. If it can up hold it’s much toward advancement, it will be able to
set a role model in our country as a leading company.

12 | P a g e