Riordan, Inc. is a private organization that engages itself in the manufacture of plastic products that are later sold to other manufacturers. The items produced in this company include plastic bottles, fans, heart valves, custom plastic parts, and medical stents.
Over the years, the company has experienced tremendous growth that has resulted in the establishment of other branches, namely: San Jose, California, Albany, Georgia, Pontiac, Michigan, and Hangzhou, China. Riordan Company has a defined strategic plan to dictate how the organization will accomplish its mission. This paper will focus on the strategic plan of Riordan Inc and the importance of ethics and social responsibility in its strategic management plan.
The strategic plan of Riordan is an issue-based plan because it aims at providing solutions to the hurdles that have been cited as barriers towards achieving the company’s goals. Riordan Company has realized that it can accomplish its goals by trimming the expenditures and improving on its performance. For instance, the company plans to integrate IT infrastructure in its corporate strategy to interlink the four branches.
According to Bryson (2011), the current Enterprise Resource Planning systems are not compatible and hence it is necessary to install a common system that offers compatibility to all the branches. This is because the four branches are one entity and thus, their inventory records should be uniform.
Using the same ERP system ensures that employees can perform their tasks at ease, regardless of their location. This is because Riordan is a growing organization and employee transfers are bound to happen. Such transfers should not affect the performance of the employees who work in the incorporated departments. For instance, if an employee from Michigan office was relocated to China, that employee would have to be trained again for him/her to be able to catch up with the rest.
The incompatibility of Riordan ERP systems need to be solved because the problem can affect the inventory records and thus lead to a decline in output. The differences in the choice of system imply that the four branches did not address the issue of compatibility. Lynch (2006) explains that in strategic planning decisions are not made blindly because an organization needs to analyze the future implications of its decisions regardless of whether the solution is long term or short term.
In addition, the customers of Riordan are not limited to one geographic location and thus compatibility should enable the customers to interact remotely with the organization. In business world, trust is built by communicating regularly and from the look of things incompatibility can bar customers from communicating with Riordan. This interaction is important because it provides an opportunity for an organization to get feedback from clients and thus improve towards meeting customer needs.
Riordan Company scanned the environment with the aim of identifying open opportunities that can be utilized at its advantage. The observations revealed that Hangzhou’s branch was not conveniently placed and this is because more money was being spent on catering for transportation costs.
Shanghai was chosen because of its proximity to the water body, which is considered less costly mode of transport than road transport. If Riordan Company had not planned, the volume of output would have reached unmanageable levels. This is because road transport cannot be efficient in conveying bulky goods. Currently, the cost of road transport is hiking and this means that businesses will have to pay more for their goods to be transported from one point to another. This argument is backed by the latest rise in fuel prices.
Therefore, corporate social responsibility had to be considered from the day that Riordan Company resorted to using water transport. Additionally, ethics have to be adhered to because they were not established just for the sake of being defined. Riordan must exercise its ethics during the implementation of its strategic plan, regarding operations and waste management. For instance, financial records are supposed to be vetted by an external auditor and the current problem of systems incompatibility has been hindering the completion of external and internal auditing in considerable time.
The planned relocation should be evaluated to ensure that Riordan does not dispose its industrial waste into the river. This is because the act itself is a health hazard and if the potential customers realize this, the company will face a lot of resistance and will have many liabilities to deal with. Olsen (2007) explains that ethics are important because they are the ones that dictate how an organization is going to conduct its operations without interfering with the livelihoods of the public.
Furthermore, Riordan must observe ethics in all production processes to ensure that consumers get products that are worth their money. This is because customers develop loyalty to organizations that have their interests at heart. Giving discounts to buyers is a marketing strategy, but can also be considered as part of CRC.
Most people think that giving back to the society must entail material things. Giving back to the adjacent communities will go a long way towards cementing the relationship between Riordan and the society that is comprised of its potential customers.
In conclusion, Riordan must stick to its mandate of providing solutions to customers in an ethical manner, rather than being part of the problem. The challenges that are being faced and the ones that are yet to come should be viewed as opportunities of learning and growing.
Therefore, ethics and social responsibility requires constant changes in organizational conduct and performance. Since internal and external requirements change, it is imperative that Riodarn, as a firm likely to survive in future, observe the changing needs from the society and regulations imposed by the government
References
Bryson, M.J. (2011). Strategic Planning For Public And Nonprofit Organizations (4th ed.). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
Lynch, R. (2006). Corporate Strategy (4th ed.). London: Prentice Hall.
Olsen, E. (2007). Strategic Planning For Dummies, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing.