Business Continuity

A major concern for the Riordan Manufacturing Corporation is how the organization will influence their business continuity (BC) within the strategic plan. The organization can begin by incorporating a continuity plan that can support the organizations vision, mission, goals, and can provide direction toward the objects, operations, and functioning factors involve in the strategic planning process. An organization can apply different types of continuity plans like a Business Resumption plan (BRP), Disaster Recovery plan (DRP), or a Business Continuity plan (BCP). The best plan for the Riordan Manufacturing Corporation would be the business continuity plan (BCP); because it will allow several processes, tools, and steps that can prove to be very quick and useful in the organization long-term strategic positioning. A business continuity plan (BCP) can address issues like project initiative, risk assessment, business impact analysis, strategy development, plan development, plan exercising, maintenance, emergency communications, awareness training, and coordination with public authorities (Karvin, p, 1, Para 1). Thus in hope this will achieve synergy between and among the Riordan functions and business units in the entire organization; this includes the coordination strategies, share tangible resources, and economies of scale or scopes through a matrix structure like reengineering the business processes.
Assessment

To ensure that Riordan is heading in the right direction in the assessments, evaluation, feedback control, and ensure stakeholders interest; Riordan assessment needs to be in concurrence with each evaluation tools provided in a reengineering, action plan or through the use of the organizations already set Six Sigma programs to address the assessment concerns.

This will allow the organization to achieve the best projection and complete picture of the organizations accomplishments and goals set in the strategic plan. The focus point for Riordan is toward the evaluation of competence, stakeholders interest, and skill levels involvement in the strategic planning processes. This helps to address issues in the different areas of the Riordan manufacturing systems, employee performance, and quality control. .For example; Riordan functions across four business units and has a complex formal system geared toward the comparative assessment in performance, indicating problems, opportunities, and assessing management abilities in the divisions managers.
Feedback Controls

If the Riordan Manufacturer follows a differentiation strategy it can follow a steering control process to measure and control the different stages involve in the functional areas of the development and planning process. According to Wheelen and Hunger (2010) Steering controls can measure variables that influence future profitability (p, 332, Para 2). This also provides a way that Riordan can apply needs to develop measures that can predict the profitability in the organizations strategic plan. Thus informing the organization of any typical problems, objectives, reward systems, and characteristics involve in the structure of the strategy. Through the development of evaluation tools and control process; Riordan can ensure that the organization is achieving what it has set out to accomplish in the measuring process. A good process is the five step feedback model that evaluates results and corrective actions for determining what to measure, establish standards of performance, measure actual performance, and compare actual performance with the standard. Riordan will also need to employ a contingency or action plan to terminate any risk or uncertainty in the present strategy or plan.

This allows the organization to stop any actions and allot any further time needed to make certain changes in the strategy. This will also allow direction for management in regards to who will be maintaining the progress while retaining control and managing the stakeholders interest in the Riordan Manufacturing Corporation.

References

Search Disaster Recovery, (n.d). Kirvan, P., Using a business continuity plan template: A free business continuity template and guide. Retrieved December 10, 2011 from http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/feature/Using-a-business-continuity-plantemplate-A-free-business-continuity-template-and-guide

Wheelen, T. L., & Hunger, J. D. (2010). Concepts in strategic management and business policy: Achieving sustainability (12th Ed.). Retrieved December 10, 2011 from Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.