Riordan Review

Virtual Organizations

In the past, college graduates would embark on careers in the business world with book learned business theory. Now the college curriculum can include practical use of real world situations in a web-paged virtual organization. This virtual organization allows students experience to review, analyze, troubleshoot and resolve real business problems. This paper will review the virtual company, Riordan Manufacturing, allowing students to review existing business systems, identify improvements or introduce new business systems to allow the company to thrive in the growing technology of the business world.

Riordan Manufacturing

Riordan Manufacturing, a company that is wholly owned by Riordan Industries, a Fortune 1000 enterprise specializes in the field of plastic injection molding. Riordan Manufacturing was initially Riordan Plastics, Inc., a company founded by Dr. Riordan in 1991 to process polymers into high tensile strength plastic substrates. Due to its initial success and venture capital obtained, it was able to expand and take on a new identity hence the name change. Its products include plastic beverage containers produced at its plant in Albany, Georgia, custom plastic parts produced at its plant in Pontiac, Michigan, and plastic fan parts produced at its facilities in Hangzhou, China. The company's research and development is done at the corporate headquarters in San Jose. Riordan's major customers are automotive parts manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, the Department of Defense, beverage makers and bottlers, and appliance manufacturers.

Riordan’s Mission

Riordan has identified criteria in four areas that define the company’s mission statement. First, the company focus is to have attitudes and abilities that exceed industry standards to provide solutions for customer’s challenges and lead the industry in Research and Development. Second, the mission for customer relationships is to be a solution for the customer, maintain quality, innovation, and customer service at a reasonable price. Third, to ensure the long-term viability of the company, the mission to the employees is to have an innovative and team oriented working environment, in addition to keeping the employees informed and supported. Lastly, the future of the company depends on maintaining profitability to allow growth in the company (Apollo Group, 2004).

To meet the company focus of being the industry leader in R&D, there must be a commitment by management to stay ahead of the curve in technology for R&D. For Customer Relationships, combining systems for each of the divisions would help ensure Riordan was not part of the customer’s challenges. Existing business systems and hardware need to be the same or compatible between each of the divisions of the company in order to operate efficiently. In addition, support, maintenance and licenses need to be current on all systems to avoid situations such as service contracts being discontinued, expertise being lost to attrition or systems and hardware becoming obsolete. If these situations occur, customer service and delivery is compromised. To meet the mission for the employees to be a team, each division will need to talk and understand the same technical terms, combine systems to bring employees together with a common goal, provide training on new systems, match and enhance pay structures and improve communication with vehicles such as a news letter to share goals, accomplishments and company news. For the future of the company, maintaining profitability and growth is easy to accomplish if the other portions of the mission are achieved successfully.

Internet Site

The internet site is too static. It needs to be set up as a dynamic one and allow some interaction between those who visit the site just for information, as well as incumbent and potential clients who may want to transact business over the internet. Letting visitors to the site know their mission is also a good way of making the site and the company more appealing. There should be more information concerning the products they offer and how people can place orders or correspond with company personnel. There should be some sort of portal to an extranet where clients can place orders for their needs in an easy and secure way. This may mean acquiring some business systems which will integrate with the systems they already have, in order to provide a seamless online experience for clients. This may involve getting some form of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to integrate their several data sources and processes into a unified system. They can achieve this by using multiple components of computer software