Riordan

Riordan Manufacturing began business as Riordan Plastics in San Jose, CA in 1991 as a research and development company and licensing of its polymer processing patents. Over the years, the company has acquired a fan manufacturing plant in Pontiac, MI, a plastic beverage container manufacturing plant in Albany, GA and most recently expanded to a new manufacturing plant in Hangzhou, China. To expand on its product offerings, the company moved its fan manufacturing operation to the new China plant and the Pontiac, MI location now handles custom plastic parts. Some of the company’s major customers include the Department of Defense, automotive parts and aircraft manufacturers, appliance manufacturers, and beverage bottlers. The expansion of operations has increased Riordan Manufacturing’s customer base, but has also led to some issues with disparity and compatibility among the business systems between the independent operating locations, some of which need attention to improve business operations.

Sales and Marketing

The sales and marketing division of Riordan Manufacturing has critical business systems issues to address. Their main issue is that they have historical records saved in numerous databases, as well as on paper and microfiche. As stated in Riordan’s 2006 sales plan, the company would like to consolidate their information into a Customer Relations Management (CRM) system (Riordan Manufacturing, Sales, 2006). A CRM is a system that manages customers and is used as a tool to track everything the company does that relates to its customers.

Riordan should decide to go to a completely new CRM system and replace their current system, which is not giving them the functionality they desire. However, this is a long process with many considerations.