National Presto Industries: financial performance measures and market metrics

¶ … NATIONAL PRESTO INDUSTRIES. Outputs complicated understand. At Organization level, products services provided customers. (It provided owners, .) The primary a company measures performance financially: Sales, Profit, Return Sales (ROS), Return Assets; market share.

National Presto Industries

National Presto Industries is a notable American organization, with a vast history and notable results. The organization was founded in 1905 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin as the manufacturer of pressure canners. Gradually, the company expanded its business operations and its product array and is now a distinguished player in the industry of kitchen appliances.

National Presto Industries was a rather small firm, emphasizing on quality and tradition. While it still preserves its values, the current company is striving towards operating in a more efficient and profitable manner. This change is due to the increasing pressure from the competition, but also changes in the behavior and demands of customers. In this sense, it came to place more emphasis on the generation of organizational strength by focusing on three specific channels -- customer satisfaction, innovation and product quality.

"Forecasting the needs of the American consumer and seeking to fill those needs through a consistent program of product innovation, quality manufacturing and aggressive marketing has been the objective of National Presto Industries for over 100 years, and it will continue to be in the years ahead" (Website of National Presto Industries, 2011).

From this perspective, National Presto Industries appears as a strong and performant organization. Still, to generate a more informed conclusion, it is useful to assess the organization through the lenses of the Nadler-Tushman congruence model.

This model centers on the organizational ability to implement and manage change in a productive and proficient manner. It focuses on the organization and assesses it as a mixture of more elements, rather than a single unity. Specifically:

"This model views the organization as a system that draws inputs from both internal and external sources (strategy, resources, environment) and transforms them into outputs

(activities, behavior and performance of the system at three levels: individual, group and total). The heart of the model is the opportunity it offers to analyze the transformation process in a way that does not give prescriptive answers, but instead stimulates thought on what needs to happen in a specific organizational context" (Super Business).

According to the Nadler-Tushman congruence model, the analysis of National Presto Industries is best to be conducted through the lenses of three specific levels -- the individual, the group and the organizational level. At each of the three levels, emphasis would be put on the goals and performances achieved / measured.

a) The individual level

At the individual level, the goal of the entity is that of maximizing the performances of its staff members. The organization strives to implement competitive wages and to create a pleasant working environment so that its employees feel valued and strive to support the company in attaining its objectives. At a more detailed level, National Presto Industries strives to align its overall objectives with the individual objectives of its staff members.

The approach implemented in regard to the organizational employees is part of the larger organizational commitment to operate with high levels of corporate responsibility, citizenship and environmental sustainability. According to this credo, the company functions by the following principles:

" • We will be truthful.

• We will adhere to the letter and spirit of all applicable laws, rules, and regulations.

• We will provide high-quality products and services.

• We will be a good corporate citizen. We will obey the laws and conform to locally accepted standards of good corporate citizenship wherever we do business.

• We will promote and sustain a work environment that fosters mutual respect, openness, and individual integrity" (Website of National Presto Industries, 2011).

The employees represent the most valuable resource at Presto and they are the ones that support the company in attaining its objectives. In other words, the assessment of the overall corporate results is highly indicative of the performances of the individuals staff members. Aside from this, the performance is assessed through comparative analysis of individual outputs in various conditions.

b) The group level

At the level of the group, the company's performances and efforts are similar to those made at an individual level, in the meaning that emphasis is placed on mutual efforts to attain the corporate goal. The approach is however more complex and more integrated. The guiding values are however the same, as are the ultimate goals followed.

From a structural level, it has to be noted that National Presto Industries is formed from three specific divisions, as follows:

- The division for small appliances and housewares

- The defense division and last,

- The division for absorbent products.

The outputs depend on the specific division, but these include the finite items as created by each group. The inputs include primarily labor force and commodities used in the production of the items. A more salient resource -- as it is not directly observed by the divisions and more so by the company -- is represented by the capitals invested.

The performances at each structural level are assessed through the volumes of production, compared with the levels of resource consumption. Emphasis is as such being placed on operational efficiency through the maximization of the outputs and the minimization of the resource inputs.

c) The organizational level

The efforts made at the organizational level are similar to those made at the individual and group level, with the difference that the approach is more complex and more integrated. The outputs at this level include the final products of the company which would eventually transforme into revenues, and the inputs include mainly the capitals engaged in the purchase of commodities, technologies, utilies, labor force and so on.