Competitive Advantages Paper

Competitive Advantages Paper

Competitive Advantages Paper

To survive in the marketplace today an organization must work diligently to market themselves and tout their advantages over their competition. This is accomplished through surveying the environment and performing SWOT analysis, where the organization will identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Armed with this information, they are poised to build strategies to enhance their performance and to jettison themselves into becoming the market leader. The plastic injection molding industry is a highly competitive market based heavily on technology improvements and partnerships between customers and suppliers. To compete in this market an organization must have the skill, technology, and knowledge to build their business model to promote these objectives and sustain their competitive advantage. Riordan Manufacturing will serve itself well through protecting its patents, opening up global capacity, and staying as a leader in technology. Through knowing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the organization, a company is prepared to build strategies to protect their share of the market and grow it by touting their competitive advantage as well as building an organization focused on improvement and progress.

Riordan shares a common strategy with Comcast in that has established a very strong corporate strategy, fulfilling the three main categories. Riordan makes plastics used to make a variety of products. The company's research originally founded the company. Plastic is a very common element found in many products all over the world. Riordan Manufacturing ensures its stability by the patents that started the company in 1991. Since 1991, the company has continued to grow not only in location but also in product development. The ability to grow is a reflection of the strong corporate strategy and the ability to communicate its focus and future. Riordan has shown its retrenchment strategy by continuing to reinvent its original patent. It began with a number of different patents that led to a fan manufacturing company. Most recently, Riordan has ventured to custom plastic parts.

Riordan can benefit by developing a functional strategy further. Riordan began its foundation based on research. Riordan must continue to strive forward in this department and further develop research. There are currently only three staff members of the research program. According to Riordan's income statement, net profit continues to increase year over year. Riordan will stand to benefit by dedicating five percent of net profits to research and development every year. Given that technology is constantly changing, Riordan must take advantage of this approach and focus on the distinctive research.

Riordan's success can be attributed to their mission. "Six Sigma, leading edge R&D and exceeding ISOP 9000 standards define the attitude and abilities of Riordan Manufacturing" (Riordan Manufacturing, 2013). Increasing the research budget is critical to the future success of Riordan. Currently they show year over year increases in profit and need to reinvest some of that profit into the company. As they diversify and get into additional product lines, research will be the key to further growth. They need to increase their funding for research products to stay ahead of their competitors and ensure a successful