Measuring Success for Riordan Essay Example for Free

Measuring Success for Riordan Essay With the goal of realizing sustainability for the shareholders, Riordan Manufacturing is working towards a growth strategy that will further expand operations globally. Expansion of business outside of the United States and Hangzhou, China will help Riordan gain brand recognition and claim greater market share within their industry. Global operations will also help to streamline shipping processes to overseas customers, and reduce wasted hours and expenditures. With a strategy drawn up and the implementation ready to begin, Riordan Manufacturing needs to realize that progress needs to be tracked. Certain measurement techniques and assessment protocols should be in place to verify that the strategy is implemented properly. In this paper measurement guidelines will be given that will verify strategy effectiveness, assessment and feedback ideas will be outlined, and plans for strategy alterations will be defined. The evaluation and control process ensures that the company is achieving the desired goals and objectives that it is set out to accomplish. In order to setup the most appropriate evaluation process, there are many guidelines for measurement that should be considered. Cost effectiveness, relevance, and validity are attributes that should be considered when measuring outputs and outcomes. A measure is cost effective is the control and information it provides outweighs the cost of producing the data (Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning and Legislative Budget Board, 1992). The measure should also be relevant in that it relates to the company’s goals, objectives and strategies. This information should be used for assessment and decision making as well. In regards to validity, the measure should collect all information that directly relates to the scope of the process or project. All other non relevant information should be filtered and discarded to achieve the results intended. The management team of Riordan Manufacturing needs to determine the specific implementation process to be used and what results will be monitored and evaluated. In addition, the management team will be responsible for setting standards of performance used to measure performance that are detailed expressions of strategic objectives (Wheelen Hunger, 2010). Return on investment (ROI) and earnings per share (EPS) are considered to be appropriate measures that Riordan Manufacturing should use in order to determine if the company is reaching their profitability objectives. These measures are limited in that they do not display real time information and instead focus upon what has already happened. In order to combat this, steering control are used to measure variables that influence future profitability (Wheelen Hunger, 2010). Since Riordan Manufacturing is looking to increase the effectiveness of its customer service, customer satisfaction should be used as one of the company’s steering controls. Customer satisfaction can be measured through scores on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) or through of process of comparing the total amount of sales with the amount of customer service requests and the time spent dealing with the customer’s problem. This measurement will have a direct impact upon the quarterly profits of the company.