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.

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.

Top manager should be evaluated also regarding their professional behavior, because they represent the models that should be followed by their subordinates. In such cases, all criteria must be taken into consideration when performing the evaluation.

The HR responsible must be evaluated based on the quality of his work, but interpersonal and communication skills should be included in the evaluation. Although communication influences the success of the company's processes, it should be included in the performance evaluation of all jobs. However, the importance attributed to these criteria will vary in accordance with the requirements and objectives of each job.

Personnel working in the research and development department should be evaluated based on the quality and quantity of their work. Although professional behavior should be included as a criteria in evaluating all types of jobs, its importance should be more reduced in comparison with other skills required by each job and situation.

Reference list:

1. Annual Report (2009). Palm, Inc. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://quote.morningstar.com/stock-filing/Annual-Report/2009/5/29/t.aspx?t=XNAS:PALM&ft=10-K&d=7295e9ff98fa7b53.