Resources: Riordan Virtual Organization, Concepts in Strategic Management and Business Policy, and Competitive Advantages Paper
Scenario: The board of directors for Riordan Manufacturing has asked your team to create a strategic plan for the organization.
Create a 2,500- to 3,500-word strategic plan for Riordan Manufacturing starting from what you learned in Week One and using a similar strategic management process as Concepts in Strategic Management and Business Policy. You may also use information from the team project you completed for Riordan Manufacturing in Week Four to create the strategic plan.
Cover thoroughly the areas of environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control.
Address the following questions in your strategic plan:
Why does Riordan need a strategic plan?
What role should ethical and social responsibility considerations have in Riordan’s strategic management plan?
What competitive advantages does Riordan have, and which competitive strategies should Riordan utilize to improve innovation and sustainability in both domestic and international applications?
What measurement guidelines should be used to verify strategy effectiveness?
What internal dynamics along with cultural and structural leadership considerations should be used in implementing business strategy for Riordan?
How do they influence business continuity?
What assessment and feedback controls should be used to determine the direction to take Riordan? If the strategy of Riordan does not go according to plan, at what point would you consider altering the strategic plan you have suggested?
Explain and justify all of the decisions you have made for your strategic plan, using research and understanding learned from the reading material.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
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Riordan Virtual Organization & Environmental Scan Paper
Jason Patton
MGT/498
9/7/15
According to Albright (2004), environmental scan is the process through which business reviews factors that may affect its operations and hence thereby affecting its performance. Environmental scanning helps the management to get meaningful information as concerns some factors that may affect the performance of the business at a future date thus, environmental scanning helps the management to come up with suitable strategies to counteract the occurrence of come undesirable events that may affect the organizational performance adversely. It is worth noting that environmental scanning involves considering factors with the business that may adversely affect its operations as well as external factors that may affect the operations and hence the performance of a business.
According to North (2007), internal factors that may affect the performance of a business adversely are known as internal environmental factors and they include such factors as the organization culture, employees and the business management. On the other hand, factors outside the business that may affect the performance of a business are known external environmental factors and they include such factors as ‘political factors, economical factors, socio-cultural factors and technological factors’ among others. “Environmental scanning is essential to a business because it enlightens management to undertake precautionary measures against any possible future occurrences that may affect the performance of a business adversely.” (Kumar, Subramanian & Strandholm, 2001) Through this, the business is able to maintain positive financial performance and hence this ascertains it of its going concern. According to Hambrick (2002), environmental scanning enables businesses to undertake strategies to improve its profitability. This research will conduct environmental scan for Riordan and Apple Corporation. It will focus on each of the named companies, analyzing how Apple is staying ahead of the curve with its strategy and what Riordan can do to improve its plans for its strategy.
Environmental scan for Apple Corporation
Apple Company is a producer and distributor of electronic devices such as I-pads. The company internal environment is characterized by its culture. Its name and brand support the culture of the apple company thereby giving it competitive advantage over its main competitors. It is argued that the symbol and the company name give it customers’ goodwill since its known for producing quality products. The company acquires competitive advantage through external environmental factors the main being the economic factors. Apple Company produces high quality goods and hence they are sold at high prices. Thus, most of its products are viewed as Giffen goods and hence its products has high demand by the high class people in the economy as they like being associated with Giffen goods for purposes of maintaining their social class. It can also be noted that Apple Company is technologically advanced a factor that further gives it a competitive advantage. Apple Company produces its products in phases in that it releases a single product and allows it to sell in the market for a while as its business strategy. This helps the company to avoid any possibility of cannibalism of its products. The company measures the effectiveness of these strategies by measuring the volume of sales for successive products that it releases. This measurement guideline is effective for the company as it uses the volume of sales of particular products to know what features they would include or even exclude in their successive products. Apple uses just about all business strategies in order to stay on top. They are good to their customers, their employees, and they are the bar for technology. In order for them to stay so successful they want to stay good to everyone so people will keep buying their products and keep the best employees in order to make and sell their products.
Environmental scan for Riordan
Riordan is a serious player in the plastics industry with manufacturing plants in the US and China. With a mission of producing high quality plastics for multiple purposes, Riordan Plastics has developed a solid plan for success, which includes Six Sigma as the basis for quality and processing research. Global enterprises and government contracts are just a few of the companies and organizations with whom Riordan conducts business with.
As the plastics and polymers business is a unique industry, one would think there are not many factors, which may affect the success of Riordan. On the contrary, plastics are used for many products such as bottling of drinks and water, car parts, aircraft parts and appliances. It is because of the vast uses for plastics, which can cause the need for a change or adjustment to Riordan’s plans for the future. Competition creates innovation, and the world is in a constant pace for change. What this means is that at any given time one of the factors, which can affect Riordan, can affect Riordan, which could leave the company in a position for change and adaptation. For example, if at some point in the near future a starter up company developed an innovative new plastic which was biodegradable then Riordan would be left with its wheels spinning as a huge part of its industry contracts would be cancelled or not renewed. In order to keep up with any changes to the industry, Riordan must research product ideas as well as industry variables and scenarios. Only with preparation can a company possibly survive on the global market.
Conclusion
In the end Riordan and Apple both produce the best possible product in their field. But Apple on one hand uses multiple strategies in order to stay on top of their game and Riordan does not. Riordan tries but still has a bit of a ways to go. They struggle with the financial portion of their business and need to focus on that part more. A Financial strategy is needed for Riordan in order to straighten out their finaces so they can make more of a profit.
References
Albright, T. L., & Ingram, R. W. (2004). Accounting: Managing business information. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western.
Hambrick, H. (2002). It’s about time: [sound recording]. Etobicoke: Heather Bambrick.
Kumar, K., Subramanian, R., & Strandholm, K. (2001). COMPETITIVE STRATEGY, ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING AND PERFORMANCE: A CONTEXT SPECIFIC ANALYSIS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP. International Journal of Commerce and Management. doi:10.1108/eb047413
United States, & United States. (2007). North American industry classification system: United States, 2007. Lanham, MD

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