Gap Analysis: Riordan Manufacturing

1946 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Changing roles

Gap Analysis: Riordan Manufacturing Riordan Manufacturing, a Fortune 1000 enterprise and global plastics producer, creates custom plastic parts for customers primarily in the automotive industry, aircraft manufacturers, the Department of Defense, bottlers and beverage makers, and appliance manufacturers. Recently however, declining sales and uneven profits have forced Riordan to make several strategic changes in the way it manufactures and markets its products, and management is working to address motivational issues within its workforce (University of Phoenix, 2007). This following will cover aspects of Riordans' issues, opportunities, and stakeholder perspectives and ethical dilemmas that are present. This paper will also cover Riordans' desired end-state goals as a result from implementing new strategies. Situation Analysis In response to declining sales and uneven profits, Riordan has been forced to change its sales process and has adopted a customer-relationship management (CRM) system. Customers are now served by sales teams rather than a single sales person. In addition to the sales person, the team typically includes a product engineering specialist and customer service rep. Riordan has also implemented a Six Sigma quality approach and is ISO9000 certified. These measures were adopted with the hope that sales would improve. Internally however, a recent employee survey revealed that employee motivation, satisfaction and retention are down. Issue Identification Riordan is experiencing a number of issues which include but are not limited too; a decline in sales, employee motivation, satisfaction and retention; however, due to the various functional specialists, there are different issues within the company. R&D employees are not satisfied with compensation and decreased satisfaction. The IT group feels they are not being adequately recognized for their contributions. Due to the decline in sales Riordan has had to revise its sales approach and process to better serve customers, however, with the changes came more issues. Employees are concerned about the fairness of incentives and compensation and do not understand how that will translate effectively into the CRM system. Riordan has a very diverse workforce with a plethora of motivational needs, from valuing interesting work to larger paychecks. Riordan is not effectively communicating to all the various demographic groups within the company. Employees have revealed in the annual survey that many are not satisfied or challenged by their work, and do not feel adequately compensated for their efforts. Motivation is low, and employees do not feel they have sufficient opportunities for development or promotion. These issues have culminated to the point that many employees are actively looking for opportunities outside of Riordan (University of Phoenix, 2007).

Show More
Related

  • Diagnostic Services Inc.: Case Study: Diagnostics Services Inc.

    1271 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the salespeople’s immediate supervisor, it is the primary responsibility of the manager to provide proper training to enhance the salespersons’ effectiveness and improve their skills. Given the importance of having a productive and enthusiastic sales team, the manager needs to develop and manage effective reward and compensation packages to ensure a highly motivated and satisfied sales force. Sales managers also ensure that the company 's standards of professionalism, image, and branding are consistent with the sales team’s interaction with company customers. The manager 's presence also makes customers feel valued as well as provide credibility on behalf of the company (Pilling, Donthu, & Henson,

    Read More

  • Nordstrom Case Analysis

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Nordstrom department store empire has been one of the leading companies in the fashion market. They generated over 2.5 billion dollars in sales last year, yet they are facing several internal problems. While Nordstrom strives to have the best customer service in the industry, living by the “Nordstrom way” has caused some hardships on the companies’ employees. An in-depth analysis of the sales position at Nordstrom using the job characteristic model reveals that the job design may moderately increase employees intrinsic motivation, but it is lacking in several areas.

    Read More

  • Riordan Manufacturing and Strategic Planning

    1907 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although Riordan Manufacturing has a generic strategic direction, a comprehensive strategic plan reevaluation and development must occur after the move to China. Environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, evaluation, and control are fundamental to the creation of a strategic plan (Wheelen & Hunger, 2010). Because, strategic planning is integral to the corporate strategy and success of Riordan the board of directors' requesting Team B formulate a comprehensive strategic plan for their organization.

    Read More

  • Job Redesign And Workplace Rewards Assessment

    1506 Words  | 4 Pages

    Organizations face massive challenges in attracting and retaining a high-quality and productive workforce. Companies are continually looking for new ways to keep their employees satisfied at all levels in order to harness greater productivity and ideas from people while keeping them motivated and happy. One real challenge examined earlier is the need to transform General Motors to be a much more productive and fully utilized organization by examining the hourly workforce. This is a great change from the traditional "us versus them" mentality of the past between management and the union.

    Read More

  • RBC Financial Group Case Analysis

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    The sales leads are now centralized and accessible across branches rather than individually gathered and processed by salespeople. In standardizing customer information, it now makes the marketing teams, analytic teams, and customer managers on the same page. It creates a “friendly competition” that encourages close cooperation for all areas. One major cost that this new strategy created was the confusion of different areas in RBC. Product managers and customer managers often misunderstood what way of action was appropriate, which lead to another problem: it took more time to make decisions. A benefit of this change is that there was no fighting for resources and instead cooperation. Another benefit would be the divisional organization, which can be seen in Exhibits 3a and

    Read More

  • Problem Solution: TeraTech

    1658 Words  | 4 Pages

    With all the given issues and challenges that TeraTech is facing, they can use them to their advantage, and turn them into opportunities. They are faced with the opportunity to develop a CRM tool that will bridge the gap between the product and the customer, appealing to their wants and needs, which will in turn generate an increase in sales. With the improvement in customer service and customer relations, TeraTech has the opportunity to create customer loyalty with the potential to entice future customers.

    Read More

  • Discount School Supply Case Study Summary

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Three companies: Discount School Supply(DSS), Sherwin-Williams and First American Corporation(FAC) sought competitive advantages by utilizing CRM systems. Firstly, DSS focused on guaranteeing the sales procedure is proficiently managed. Secondly, Sherwin-Williams improved their supply chain by embarking on a CRM project. Lastly, FAC realized growth by utilizing CRM strategies in making organizational transformations. Case 1: Discount School Supply(DSS), formerly known as SmarterKids.com, retails educational toys assisting parents in fostering educational goals for their children.

    Read More

  • Hoya Lens Ltd Essay

    621 Words  | 2 Pages

    If the company decides for changes, his role is assisting to management team to keep employees informed about the situation and help to change the strategy and bring new development and better communication for staff, stakeholders and pass the information’s those who need it. Issue The problem: “employees don’t have the skills to work on new machines and completion of the task will take far longer than anticipated”. Before the company goes forward to solve the problem they need to look carefully and deeply what went wrong, and how deep this problem affects employees and their work. In this situation organization decide to arrange the meeting for production management and stakeholders. At the meeting is necessary to inform all stakeholders about the situation, then analyze the problem, make a plan and strategy and find a solution for this situation then make a decision.

    Read More

  • Sas Case Study

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Attracting and retaining the best employees is a priority of most companies. Generally speaking, employees are the largest overhead expense for most employers. For these reasons, it is crucial to not only attract the best employees, but also to keep valuable employees. Being named one of the best employers is a valuable honor, and an honor that SAS has earned multiple times over multiple years on different lists (cite sasranks). The ability of SAS to attract and retain employees is undoubtedly linked to their consistent success and profit, even in difficult years (cite rowley). A critical look at SAS and their employment philosophies reveals how SAS leverages motivational theories

    Read More

  • Marketing: Burberry Target Audience

    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    Soman,D & Marand, S (2009). Managing Customer Value: One Stage at a Time.: World Scientific Publishing. p9-14.

    Read More

  • Fab Sweets Case Analysis

    1389 Words  | 3 Pages

    The main problems that are affecting the company were the high level of labour turnover, below target production rates, high levels of scrap, the employees had little input in the decision making, therefore resulting in low motivation and job satisfaction, and didn't have enough feedback on there performance. Added to this was the conflict between the supervisors and employees in the production and packing areas, and the grading and payment levels wasn't satisfactory to the employees.

    Read More

  • Career Development At Electronic Applications

    1502 Words  | 4 Pages

    Being the lack of career development programmes the main reason for employees to leave the company more in detail issues were identified:

    Read More

  • Motivation Essay

    971 Words  | 2 Pages

    Motivation is a vital topic in organisations as it 'concerns what drives a person's choice of what to do, how hard they try, and how long they keep trying.' Arnold et al 2010. Managers and senior managers try to understand human needs in the belief that doing so accurately makes it easier to influence what they do. (Boddy 2010, page 451). There are 2 types of rewards, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic rewards are valued benefits that come from the individual such as feelings of satisfaction, achievement and competence. (Boddy 2010, page 471)

    Read More

  • Myths Of Innovation Essay

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    Thus, management can help to guide workers to keep certain numbers up when it comes to automobile assembly, but it often won’t be able to encourage workers to think about how to bolster fuel efficiency or how to create rechargeable cars. This isn’t such a great tragedy; most management is geared at sustaining a good business and for good reason: it can be incredibly difficult to keep a profitable team of people working together in successful and e...

    Read More

  • A Critical Review of the Book It's Not Luck by Em Goldratt

    1726 Words  | 4 Pages

    It is very clear that the problems experienced in the companies are not lone standing but in most of the cases they are dependent on each other and there are strong bonds or relationships with regards to the cause and effects between them. It is therefore important to form or establish a strong cause and affect between them.

    Read More

More about Gap Analysis: Riordan Manufacturing

Open Document