HP Palm Outputs In the Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model, outputs comprise everything that derives from the organization's activities. Thus, there are many categories of outputs. These include financial outputs (revenue, costs, profit), operational outputs (products, efficiency), human resource outputs (wages, benefits, employee turnover) and market outputs (market share, stock price). The congruence model seeks to explain a firm's relative success by analyzing its output performance in the context of the organization's goals. When the organization's inputs are aligned with its goals, it should be expected that the outputs would also be congruent with the goals. If the outputs are not congruent with the goals, the organization has not been successful, and at that point the inputs and throughputs need to be analyzed in order to determine where the organization failed. This paper will focus on the outputs at Palm, in particular those that are determined to be most important to the company's success.

In terms of financial measures of organizational performance, Palm uses many of the standard measures for all firms, including revenue, profit, margins and changes thereof. With respect to these outputs, Palm has performed poorly. The company saw revenues decline 15.5% in 2008 and a further 44.2% in 2009. Profits declined 296% in 2008 to a net loss and then declined a further 579% in 2009. Palm's equity fell from $1.062 billion in 2007 to negative equity of $413 million in 2009. During this period Palm added long-term debt totaling $394 million. Overall, Palm's financial performance over the past couple of years can only be termed as dismal.

In terms of operating outputs, Palm was able to launch two new products, the Pre and the Pixi and these were met with positive reviews from industry experts. The WebOS platform is considered to be highly accomplished (Topolsky, 2010) and was one of the main reasons why HP purchased Palm. Indeed, HP's purchase of...

In addition to new products, patents are one of the major operating outputs and Palm has performed well with both.
Market outputs have been less successful for Palm. The company has steadily lost market share in its core smartphone business and now sits at 4%, which is more or less inconsequential (Perez, 2011). This is a distant fifth in the industry and going nowhere fast. The result is that Palm's share price dropped precipitously over its last two years before HP purchased the company.

Because Palm only has two main products, each very similar to the other, it does not use groups in its measurement of results. It used to split between smartphones and handheld computers, but discontinued all of its handheld products. There is a loose geographic split (USA vs. Rest of World) as well, but this is only for informational purposes. There may also be some internal breakdown of departmental outputs (for example in marketing or in R&D).

There are a number of key individual functions at Palm. The company develops and sells new products. Thus, the research and design function seeks to increase the number of patents and the number of new products, and can also be measured by the performance of these products. Product performance can be benchmarked, for example, against competing products or against the firm's previous outputs. Innovation is essential to the smartphone industry, so performance of new products vs. competition and the pace of new product introduction and/or new patents are all useful output measures for the research and development department.

For marketing, outputs include sales, market share, and ROI. Given that the smartphone industry is relatively new, it is important for firms in the industry to build market share so that they can build a loyal customer base going forward. Sales are essential to market share, but there is a diversion…