Output diagnosis and interpretation methods

¶ … Diagnosis

Project Output Diagnosis

The success of each company is translated into a series of quantitative and qualitative outputs. These outputs are established by specialists in the field, theorists and practitioners, and are applicable to most companies, but can also be established by the company in case, in accordance with the company's object of activity, the size of the company, and its objectives.

The performance evaluation can be performed on organizational level, group level, or individual level. Each of these components is interconnected with the other components. In other words, the performance of each component depends on the performance of the other components.

On organizational level, the performance is evaluated in terms of goal attainment, resource utilization, and adaptability. Palm, Inc. is a mobile products provider that manufactures integrated technologies (Annual Report, 2009). The company's main product categories include: smartphones, software, services, and accessories. The company sells these products through the Internet, retail, reseller and wireless operator channels, and online stores.

The company's main goal consists in becoming the world leader in the mobile device industry. In order to reach this goal, the company's top managers have established a series of strategic objectives that must be achieved. One of these objectives consists in differentiating the company's products through inspiring design and seamless integration of hardware, software, and services. Product differentiation is intended to improve customer satisfaction.

The company's strategy is also based on developing a thorough Palm webOS ecosystem of application developers that aims at improving customers' Palm devices by introducing a series of products and services. This is expected to increase customer loyalty.

Palm also intends to build a brand that is recognized by customers and competitors as the leading provider of innovative and intuitive mobile devices. The company is already well-known for such attributes, but intends to speculate and to strengthen this advantage.

Another objective that the company intends to put into practice is represented by maintaining a flexible, outsourced business model. This is because the business environment is continuously changing, forcing the company to adapt to these changes in order to be competitive.

In order to become the leader in this industry, the company must reach these objectives. Palm seems to be in a good market position that could help the company expand and become the market's leader. The success of the company is also represented by the fact that palm collaborates with the most important wireless carriers in the U.S.: Sprint Nextel Corporation, Verizon Wireless, and AT & T.

Same as most companies, Palm consists in several departments. The company's most important departments and divisions include: production department, sales and marketing department, financial department, research and development department, and the HR department.

Each of these departments has its own objectives to reach, aligned with the general strategy of the company. The production department is in charge of manufacturing high quality products at lower costs. This is the reason for which the company has outsourced some of its production processes. This allows the company to reduce production costs, which further leads to lower prices for the company's products. This is a successful output for this department, given the fact that it has managed to reduce costs. This benefits both the company and its customers.

The sales and marketing department has a great responsibility in reaching the company's objectives. This department is in charge of establishing the pricing strategy that influences the company's general strategy. The department's employees must ensure that the price is sufficiently high in order to reach the financial targets of the company, but affordable for the company's customers. Also, the success of this department is represented by the fact it has managed to develop and maintain a strong relationship with the country's most important wireless carriers.

The financial department must ensure that the company's resources are allocated to the areas that require them. The successful outputs of this department can be observed in the company's financial statements that report income increases.

The research and development department has clear objectives to reach. In order to become the leader in this industry, Palm must introduce innovative, high quality products on the market. Given the pace at which technology develops, the company must continuously improve its products and services. The customer satisfaction level reflects the successful outputs of this department.

The HR department is responsible with creating a work environment that favors the quality of work, and the development of employees in order to be able to implement the strategy developed by the company's top managers.

Individual performance represents the basis for organizational performance. Even if the company's functional groups follow well-established processes and producers, their outputs depend on the individuals involved in each process. There are several sets of criteria that performance evaluation takes into consideration. These criteria include: quality, quantity, interpersonal skills, communication skills, and professional behavior.

The importance of these criteria when evaluating personnel varies in accordance with the type of job that is evaluated. For example, engineers should be evaluated based on the quality and quantity of their work, rather than on interpersonal skills.

Jobs in sales and marketing should be evaluated by granting more importance to communication skills and interpersonal skills. However, this does not mean that the quality and quantity of their work should be of a lesser importance.