Palm Incorporation’s Congruence Assessment
Introduction
In order to establish quality management within any organization it is essential for the management to comprehend the dynamics that shape the organization’s operations and determine its performance. A comprehensive understanding of the performance levels and dynamics that shape the operations of an organization will aid the managers in identifying the hindrances that lower performance levels as well as efficiency. Diagnosing the actual problems should in turn facilitate the making of appropriate strategies, which will address the real cause of the problem, instead of the observed symptoms, and as a result lead to the improvement of performance. There are many models that can be used in the analysis of any organization’s performance and dynamics as a means to establish shortcomings and prescribe corrective remedial measures. In this paper the Nadler and Tushman model shall be used in the analysis of Palm incorporation in order to determine the performance and dynamics that affect the organization. At the end of the assessment the congruence of the outputs of the organization shall be determined.
The level of congruence shall be determined by measuring how tight the various components that make the model fit- the tighter the fit the more likely it shall be that the incorporation is experiencing high performance (Wyman, 2003). The model has three sections: inputs which consist of environment, resources and history, transformation process which includes inter-relation assessment and evaluation as well as the out put which includes organizational performance, individual performance and group performance (Porter, 1980). The in put is generated from both external and internal environments. Thereafter, it is synthesized to generate the appropriate out put that includes implemented steps.
Palm Incorporation’s outputs
Palm’s out put as an organization includes the design and production of instinctive and powerful cellular phone products. Palm’s main objective is to create electronic goods that apply technological advances in a manner that creates high utility. The company creates merging technologies which help people in their work and life more especially in areas where portable technology is desired. The company uses its resource of technology experts in designing products that better, useful and faster so as to enhance speed and convenience for the users. The company’s main objective is to produce goods that depict its values.
Palm incorporation has a dedication towards the protection of the natural resources as well as the environment. This is one of Palm’s products to the community: which it realizes through the use of innovative designs which use environmentally friendly material. Therefore, apart from offering quality electronic products, the company also offers environment protection services and measures in its operations. This is realized through Palm’s comprehensive plans which set high standards for its production facilities, suppliers and partners in a bid to manage the life cycle of Palm’s products in a manner that will result in no environmental damage or resource wastage. The company applies carefully designed schemes and plans in its operations that ensure that the environment is well taken care of. This is in line with its goals of complying with the federal government’s requirements on electronic production as well as in the care for the environment.
Palm offers leadership as a company in the implementation of good operational practices that enhance resource conservation through recycling and recovery of materials as well as environmental care through the use of environmentally friendly raw materials in the production of its electronics. Palm continuously inculcates a culture that fosters in them the awareness and care for the environment. The company has effected this goal by stopping the use of polyvinyl chloride for the packaging of its products. The company also effected the elimination of halogenated flame retardants used in the electric cables of its electronics since 2008 (Palm, 2010). . Its products are RoHS compliant because the company strives to reduce harmful substances in its products. The company has also made tremendous effort in creating an environmentally friendly working place for its employees. Other similar initiatives by the company include the reduction of energy and water usage as well as applying green procurement and recycling of its waste such as e-waste and batteries. These efforts have earned the company the Green business certification (2008) (Palm, 2010).
On a group performance basis the company’s employees have been able to carry out extensive research in their research groups; this has yielded great out put to the society and people by providing products that are efficient. Therefore, group research carried out at Palm is the greatest group out put that has yielded the products that the company offers to society. On an individual basis the company’s employees have been able to work efficiently to ensure the company achieves profit and reputation denoted by its revenue gains and reputation as well as the great Social Corporate Responsibility portrayed by the company. Palm’s out puts can be categorized into three: outputs by the business organization at a large, out put at a group level, and finally out at an individual level. Alternatively, out put may be classified as tangible products that the company offers to the society or intangible benefits or services expressed through its corporate social responsibility by means such as caring for the environment. The groups within the first classification that shows sources of out puts are further classified into groups depending on the activities they carry out within the company’s framework and operations. These groups may include research groups in charge of developing software and hardware technologies to be used in the design and development of electronic products. This team is usually followed by the production team in charge of producing the actual designed products. These may be followed by the sales and marketing team in charge of creating awareness on new products as well as the actual selling. Other teams may include the management team, which is in charge of foreseeing all company’s operations.
Therefore, the groupings classify individuals according to their duties in the operations of the business. These divisions are functional in nature and define the activities that these groups are involved with in the company. However, the groups are dependent on each because their activities complement as well as supplement each other. The out puts generated by these groups interact to produce the final product and sell. Therefore, if researchers came up with a poor design, then the production unit is bound to produce a sub-standard product, which as a result will have poor marketability that will result in no sales.
Similarly, even if all groups succeeded in their efforts and the sales and marketing team failed. There will be neither product awareness nor high sales, and thus all efforts by other groups will have failed. Therefore, in order to gauge performance the end results on sales have to be evaluated and if they are high or low the reason of the success or failure can be checked against the responsible group to determine where performance failed. Generally the company measures its performance according to the revenue that it makes from the sale of its smartphones and hand held computers as its main products. High revenue levels are indicators of high levels of sales, and thus an indicator of good performance. A sample of the company’s financial data indicate that the company had the following revenue levels: $ 1,560,507, $ 1,578,509 and $ 1,270,410 for the years ended 31st May 2007, 2006 and 2005 respectively. The net incomes for these years were 56,383, 336,170 and 66,387 respectively. The congruence of Palm’s out put is actually high because the desired outputs closely fit with none conflicting or hindering the capability to get a desired out put. Thus, the company’s model can be said to be highly congruent.
The goals of Palm Incorporation
Palm’s goals include developing market defining electronic products that provide the user with great experience and efficiency. The company also strives to offer a variety of electronic industry standard platforms. The company adopts multi-platform approaches that give flexibility to it consumers. The company does this by provision of customized versions of Microsoft mobile operating systems and Palm operating systems. The company also has a clear goal of differentiating its products by distinctly designing its software applications. The company tries to effect this goal by conducting extensive research aimed at combining communication capabilities and mobile computing in the production of products such as smartphones and PDA’s (Bradley, 2010) The company also put expansion efforts as means to realize its goal of global expansion.
The company has numerous distributors and partners world-wide. These partners and distributors help in the supply and distribution chain of its products as well as the marketing campaign of its products. The company also has a goal to design and make products that are synonymous with mobile computing and as such most of its products display features of technology aimed at merging the fields of computing and telecommunication. Finally, away from its business operations the company has always maintained a goal of preserving the environment as well as reducing pollution and resource wastage through its use of recycling technologies as well as elimination of the use of raw material with environmentally harmful substances such as polyvinyl chloride and halogenated flame retardants.
Palm’s performance
Despite earlier recorded better performance as well as the good strategies implemented by Palm’s management the company has been unable to raise its sales compared to other companies offering smartphones and supportive operating systems. The research results by Change Wave Research indicate that Palm’s smartphone market share has not changed since the last conducted survey by the same research firm in June. The research’s report indicates that the company’s share has held steady at 7% percent, indicating that the sales and revenues may be stagnating (Carroll, 2010). This can be interpreted in a two-fold manner depending on the way more data analysis can be viewed.
Firstly, more information by the research group indicates that this is the first time for several years that the company’s market share has not declined. This may be attributed to the company’s latest product (Palm’s Pre) which may have attracted and retained customers and may as well attract more customers from other manufacturers of similar products. This may be attributed to the fact that Pre’s consumer satisfaction has been ranked way above earlier products offered by Palm by 45% versus 28%. On a pessimistic side the company may be seemingly stagnating because its market share has remained stuck, whilst the smartphone market has been notably rising (Carroll, 2010). Thus indicating that the rising part of the market share is being taken up by other competitors in the smartphone industry. However, conclusively the company is having a positive performance because its revenues have not experienced drops or significant losses. Looking further beyond the company may perform even better due to its recent plans of forming a merger with Hewlett Packard (Edwards, 2010).
References
Bradley, T. (2010). Palm Aligns with Leading Providers of Mobile Field Sales Solutions. Retrieved on 13th August, 2010 from http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=339875.
Carroll, T. (2010). Palm’s Smartphone Market: Not budging. Retrieved on 13th August, 2010 fromhttp://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9969/palms-smartphone-market-share-not-budging/.
Edwards, C. (2010). Hewlett Packard gets its Hands on Palm. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_19/b4177035181743.htm, on 13thAugust, 2010.
‘Palm’, (2010). Our Philosophy. Retrieved from, http://www.palm.com/us/company/environmental-stewardship/programs.html, 13th August, 2010.
Porter, E. M. (1980).Competitive strategy: techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. Free Press Publishers.
Wyman, O. (2003). The Congruence Model. Retrieved on 13th July, 2010 fromhttp://www.oliverwyman.com/ow/pdf_files/Congruence_Model_INS.pdf.
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