What is one example of differentiating business objectives

What is a business objective? Definition and meaning

A business objective is a result that a company aims to achieve. It also includes the strategies that people will use to get there. A business objective usually includes a time frame and lists the resources available.

The adjective – to be objective – means not to let personal feelings or prejudice affect you when considering something. For example:

“We need to be objective when confronting this problem – this is not a time for personal bias.”

The opposite is to be subjective.

Business objective vs. goal

A company’s goals and objectives are not the same. The goal includes a broad primary outcome. A business objective, on the other hand, is a measurable step people take to achieve that goal. Goals are general while objectives are specific.

A company’s business objectives provide a picture of how it plans to achieve its goal. It also states how long it will take, and what resources are available. A business goal is vague in comparison.

When we plan our business’ future, we generate a list of potential achievements. We call these the goals. The actual steps we plan to take get to those achievements are the objectives.

You will often hear these two terms in business situations: “Our goals and objectives are…” or “Our aims and objectives are…” In a business context, ‘aims and goals’ might have the same meaning.

People commonly use the terms ‘goals’ and ‘objectives’ interchangeably. However, they are not the same. Business objectives and goals have important differentiating attributes which we use at different stages of the planning process.

Objectives are specific – not goals

A business objective is more specific and easier to measure than a goal. All our basic tools that underlie our planning and strategic activities are our objectives.

Our objectives serve as the basis for creating policy and gauging performance.

In business, your goals are where you aim to be one day. Your objectives, on the other hand, describe how you plan to get there.

For example, making a profit is a business objective. Reducing the workforce, expanding abroad, or minimizing expenses are also business objectives. Expenses are what the business spends. Keeping track of your expenses and outgoings can be a real chore. Some business bank accounts, like Monzo, make that easier with features automatic tax pots for setting aside costs for VAT, etc.

Goals are statements a business makes regarding its future. They represent the aspirations its leaders have.

The CEO of a company may say: “We seek to become the largest maker of bicycles in the world.” This is a goal because the person does not explain how the company will achieve this.

The exact steps a company plans to take to reach its goals or aims are its business objectives. When expressing the objectives, the CEO might say:

“We will increase our sales of bicycles by 2.5% each quarter of this year. We will open new branches and factories in Germany and France during the next twelve months.”

Business objectives – small companies

Defining objectives and goals assumes great significance when selecting a great idea for a small business. Nowadays, we have scores of small business ideas that require an only online presence. While planning a fully online venture, defining objectives and goals is imperative since they decide the future trajectory of the business.

The main objectives of a small or very young business might be:

Profit Maximization

Profit maximization means making as much profit as possible. In fact, everybody has this business objective.

Survival

Survival is a short-term business objective. When you have a start-up company, staying alive is uppermost in your mind.

Survival is also a priority for small or young companies when there is an economic crisis. In fact, it is also a priority for many large corporations. An economic crisis is a situation in which the economy takes a sudden and severe downturn.

Profit satisficing

Profit satisficing means making enough profit to keep the owners happy. It is a common strategy in small businesses in which the owners do not work in the company.

Imagine you don’t work at your company. You have managers working for you. What should you do if you want them to do more than just make you happy? You should offer them a stake in the business.

Sales growth

With sales growth, a company gets larger. Most people want their company to grow. In fact, some believe that growth is the only route to survival.

Furthermore, the bigger a company, the more it can benefit from economies of scale.

When a business objective clashes

Sometimes, one business objective can clash with another. For example, growth and profit may clash. When a company achieves greater sales in the short term, perhaps by slashing prices, it reduces short-term profit.

Long-term objectives can affect the short-term prospects of a business. If it invests heavily in plant, equipment, or new products, its cash flow in the short-term will suffer.

Many business people complain that the stock market forces short-term business behaviors. Stock market investors focus too much on short-term profits, they say. Companies subsequently suffer especially their long-term growth.

Business Objectives

A business has a variety of potential objectives from profit maximisation to cultivating good relationships with various business stakeholders. Economic theory often assumes that firms are rational profit maximisers. However, in the real world, there are many other objectives that a firm can pursue.

Profit Maximisation. The most basic model of a firm assumes firms wish to maximise their profit. They will do this by increasing revenue (price * quantity sold) and reducing costs. Higher profits enable a firm to pay higher wages, more dividends to shareholders and survive an economic downturn. Many other objectives such as corporate image an increasing market share can be a way to maximise long-term profit.

Growth Maximisation. An alternative to profit maximisation is for a firm to try and increase market share and increase the size of the firm. They can do this by cutting price and increasing sales. Growth maximisation may come at the expense of lower profits. For example, starting a price war can lead to lower profits but enable higher sales. However, increasing market share can be a way to increase profits in the long-term. A firm like Walmart and Amazon have often pursued this goal of maximising market share. It gives a strong position to dominate the market in the future.

Social / Ethical concerns. A firm may not be motivated by money but may seek to offer a service to the local community. They may voluntarily take decisions which help the environment / local community. Many big firms now place a key role in promoting their ethical policies; arguably there may also be some marketing benefits to promoting ethical and social concerns. It could have a tie-up with profit maximisation.

Corporate Image. Related to social/ethical concerns is the image/brand of a firm. It may wish to cultivate a certain image and brand. Google – ‘do no evil. BP – “Beyond Petroleum”. Body Shop ‘leader in human and animal rights.’ This corporate image may be part of a business strategy to maximise profits, but it could also be a genuine desire to promote altruistic goals.

Stakeholders Well Being. A firm may also be concerned about the welfare of its stakeholders – suppliers, workers and customers. For example, giving training and long-term job security to its workers. Co-operative businesses are founded on the goal of sharing proceeds of business with whole community – customers and workers.

Survival. For many businesses, it seems a matter of surviving – breaking even. In desperate times, firms may be forced to sell off assets to keep their creditors at bay. For many small local businesses struggling in a highly competitive market, survival may be the best they can hope for. In a way survival strategies is a form of profit maximization as survival will still involve trying to increase revenue and reduce costs.
Another issue for firms is:

Profit Satisficing. This is a situation where there is a separation of ownership and control in a firm. The owners (shareholders) wish to maximise profit, but the managers and workers don’t feel the same incentive. Therefore, they do enough to keep the owners happy but then pursue other objectives such as having a good time at work.

Behavioural theories and objectives of firms

In recent years, behavioural economics has looked at psychological influences which can explain consumer behaviour. Behavioural economics suggests economics has been too narrow in reducing owners to rational profit maximisers. In the real world, profit is only one motivating factor. Business owners and workers may value enjoying work, the prestige of a good company and make irrational decisions based on emotion, e.g. keeping the family business going in one direction because of tradition.

Functional Objectives of Firms

A functional objective of a firm is achievable goals or targets of different parts of a business structure as it tries to achieve wider business objectives.

Examples of Functional Objectives

Functional Objectives and Business Strategies

To achieve functional objectives, a firm may use different business strategies. For example, if the firm has an objective to reduce staff turnover, it may pursue a new strategy of employer feedback where the firm gives staff the opportunity to have a say in the running of the business.

PI Objectives

During PI Planning, teams create PI objectives, which are the things they intend to accomplish in the upcoming Program Increment (PI). These provide several benefits:

Details

SAFe relies on a rolling wave of short-term commitments from Agile teams and trains to assist with business planning and outcomes, resulting in improved alignment and trust between development and business stakeholders. These are communicated via PI objectives.

While, by its very nature, development is uncertain, the business depends on teams for some amount of reliable, predictable forecasting. Too little, and the business can’t plan. Too much, and the business has committed to longer term plans, which are at best unreliable, and also limit agility. Business and technology stakeholders need something in between, and that is a primary purpose of PI objectives. In addition to alignment, the process of setting realistic objectives also helps avoid too much work in process (WIP) in the system. PI objectives are built largely bottom-up as the teams identify them during PI planning.

Building the Team PI Objectives

During PI planning, the teams get presented with new Features and plan the Stories they need to deliver these alongside stories that represent work from their local context. This work is described as a set of specific team PI objectives. Doing so requires estimating and planning, knowledge of the teams capacity, analysis of upcoming features, defining stories for the Team Backlog, and, finally, summarizing the information into simple business terms that can be understood by everyone.

As for the number of objectives a team should establish, there is no fixed rule, but 7-10 seems to be about right. More, and the detail and specificity are hard to understand and process by other teams and the team’s business partners. Plus there are too many to review and process in a medium to large ART. Less, and the level of abstraction or aggregation is probably too high to be measured objectively at the end of the PI.

Figure 1 illustrates an example of one team’s PI objectives.

Figure 1. A team’s PI objectives

Differentiate between Features and PI Objectives

The team’s PI objectives often relate directly to intended features; indeed, many are the same. However, the mapping is not always straightforward, since some features require the collaboration of multiple teams, as Figure 2 illustrates.

Figure 2. From features to objectives; some features will appear in more than one team’s PI objectives

Note that some features (such as Feature A) can be delivered by an individual team; others (Feature B) require the collaboration of several teams. In addition to features and inputs to features, other team objectives will appear as well. These can include technical objectives (for example, the proof of concept in Figure 1) that enable future features, enhancements to development infrastructure, Milestones and others. All the results of the planning process are captured in the team’s objectives.

Features and acceptance criteria are excellent tools to help understand, capture, and collaborate around the work that needs to be done, but it’s all too easy to get caught up in ‘finishing the features’ and missing the overall goals hiding inside. PI objectives help shift focus away from developing features to achieving the desired business outcomes.

A better understanding of the intent offered by direct conversations with the Business Owners often results in the teams providing new perspectives to System Architects/Engineering and Product Management and quickly finding ways to apply their expertise to create better solutions.

(Note: The advanced topic article Role of PI Objectives further explains the differences between team PI objectives and features and provides additional insights into their usage and value.)

Committed and Uncommitted Objectives

Committing to, and delivering, a series of short-term objectives helps to build trust. Trust allows all stakeholders to move forward with confidence and to base decisions and plans on what is ‘very likely to be true very soon’. But planning with confidence in the face of the uncertainty inherent in research and development is difficult. Things don’t always go as planned, and it’s simply prudent to build some small amount of buffer into the system. If the buffer is too big, then less might be accomplished than would otherwise be the case. If the buffer is too small, many commitments may turn out not to be feasible and planning and confidence erodes. To address, this SAFe recommends teams use both committed and uncommitted objectives during planning. (Note: these were ‘stretch’ objectives in earlier versions of SAFe). Uncommitted objectives help improve the predictability of delivering business value since they are not included in the team’s commitment or counted against teams in the program predictability measure.

Uncommitted objectives are used to identify work that can be variable within the scope of a PI. The work is planned, but the outcome is simply not certain. Teams can apply uncommitted objectives whenever there is low confidence in meeting the objective. This can be due to many circumstances:

In this case, a few (no more than 2-3) uncommitted objectives are prudent. However, teams do their best to deliver the uncommitted objectives, and they are included in the capacity and plan for the PI. However, since these objectives might not be finished in the PI, stakeholders plan accordingly.

Uncommitted objectives provide several benefits:

Write SMART PI Objectives

Team PI objectives are a summary of a team’s plan for the PI. They are critically important. Sometimes the descriptions may be very technical and/or a little vague. As a countermeasure, teams make their objectives SMART:

Communicating Business Value with PI Objectives

As objectives are finalized during PI planning, Business Owners collaboratively assign ‘business value’ to each of the team’s objectives in a face-to-face conversation. The value of this particular conversation with the team cannot be overstated, as it communicates the strategy and context behind these weighting decisions. Business Owners use a scale from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) to rate each objective. They need not be ‘normalized’ across teams; every team has some highest priority (rated 10) items.

Business value is assigned, not calculated, and serves as an input to execution considerations. Many of the team’s objectives provide direct and immediate value to the solution. Others, such as Enablers (e.g., advances in infrastructure, development environments, and quality initiatives) allow the faster creation of future business value. All of these factors must be weighed in the final balance.

Finalize Team PI Objectives

When objectives have been made ‘SMARTer,’ uncommitted objectives have been identified, and business value has been established, then the objectives in Figure 1 might evolve to look like those in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Team’s final PI objectives with an uncommitted objective and business value assigned

Commit to PI Objectives

A vote of confidence is held near the end of PI planning, where the teams commit to the PI objectives. (Uncommitted objectives are not included in this commitment.) However, it must be a reasonable ask for the people who do the work. Therefore, the SAFe commitment has two parts:

In this way, all stakeholders know that either the program results will be achieved as planned, or they will be provided sufficient notice so as to be able to mitigate and take corrective action, minimizing business disruption. That’s about as good as it gets, because this is, after all, research and development.

Creating Program and Solution PI Objectives

The output of the PI planning process will be a collection of approved team PI objectives sheets; one per team. Teams vote on the confidence level for the objectives as a set, and if confidence is high enough, the aggregate set of objectives becomes the committed ART plan. The Release Train Engineer summarizes the team objectives into the program PI objectives in a format suitable for management communication.

The summarized objectives should be SMART, much like the team PI objectives, and have uncommitted objectives. Also, like the team PI objectives, the program PI objectives might describe business features the ART is working on, enablers, or other business or technical goals.

If the ART is part of a Solution Train then during the Post-PI Planning event, after all the ARTs have planned, objectives are further rolled up by the Solution Train Engineer, and the solution PI objectives are synthesized and summarized. This is the top level of PI objectives in SAFe, and they communicate to stakeholders what the Solution Train will deliver in the upcoming PI. Figure 4 below illustrates this summary from team to program and from program to solution PI objectives.

It’s important that business value is only assigned to team PI objectives. The predictability metric itself is rolled up to determine predictability at a higher level.

Figure 4. Roll-up of the team, program and solution PI objectives

Reduce WIP with Realistic PI Objectives

During the review of the team PI objectives, not everything that was envisioned by the various business stakeholders will likely be achieved in the PI timebox. Therefore, some of the planned work will need to be reevaluated with Business Owners to gain agreement to the PI objectives.

Those lower-priority work items get moved back into the Program Backlog. Decreasing excess WIP reduces overhead and thrashing, and it increases productivity and velocity. The net result is a feasible set of PI objectives that are agreed to by all business stakeholders and team members, as well as increased efficiency and a higher probability of delivery success.

Planning at the large solution level can be very similar; the planning of the ARTs will impact each other, pushing some work back into the Solution Backlog for re-evaluation in a later PI.

Learn More

[2] Reinertsen, Donald. The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development. Celeritas Publishing, 2009.

1.5 Business Objectives and Stakeholder Objectives

1.5.1 Businesses Can Have Several Objectives and the Importance of Them Can Change

Need for business objectives and their importance

Business objectives are simply aims or targets that a business sets out to achieve.

So why are they important? Perhaps the best way of explaining the importance of business objectives is to imagine how a business would perform without targets.

If there weren’t objectives, no one in the business would know what they should be working towards. This would lead to demotivation of the workforce. As there is nothing to measure performance against it is also impossible to find out how well the business is doing.

On the other hand, with targets leaders in a business can set a clear direction on where the business is going and what they want to achieve. This motivates staff and allows progress to be measured, so businesses can celebrate success and take action if targets have not been met.

Different business objectives

Survival Business start-ups have a very high failure rate, especially in the first year. So for many new businesses their objective is survival, earning enough income to cover costs and break-even. Survival may also become an objective for established businesses during a recession, or adverse market conditions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the main focus for many hospitality and travel businesses was survival.

Growth If businesses survive their next objective will be to grow. This may mean reinvesting profits on advertising to gain new customers or new equipment to improve quality and efficiency. A good example is Netflix. For the first years after the launch of the streaming service, Netflix made large losses, as their focus was on making new content to attract users to their service, and building their customer base.

Profit is the most obvious business objective. All entrepreneurs and investors will expect to make a profit after achieving adequate growth. Facebook is a great example of a company which has shifted from growth to maximising profit.

However, a business may also have an objective beyond their own selfish interests.

Objectives of social enterprises

A social enterprise is a private enterprise which uses profits to pursue environmental or social objectives.

Social enterprises still have the objective of making a profit. However, they use the profits earned to pursue environmental or social objectives.

This idea of businesses not just focusing on profit but also the impact of business activity on other stakeholders is explored in much more detail in Unit 6.2.

A good way of remembering the objectives of social enterprises are the “3 Ps”. They earn a profit, to help people in the local community and protect the planet.

1.5.2 The Role of Stakeholder Groups Involved in Business Activity

Stakeholder objectives require students to see a business situation from different points of view. You could be asked questions like this:

Main internal and external stakeholder groups

A stakeholder is an individual or group impacted by business activity.

Internal Stakeholders are those impacted by business activity inside the business: owners, shareholders, managers and employees.

External stakeholders are not owners or employees but are affected by the activity of the business. For example, customers, government, banks, local community and suppliers.

Objectives of different stakeholder groups

Each different stakeholder group will have different objectives that may vary depending on the situation.

Examples of different stakeholder objectives

However, a really good way of figuring out stakeholder objectives is to put yourself in the shoes of the stakeholder. Let’s look at an example.

How would different stakeholders feel about new machinery that will replace some jobs at a factory?

As an employee, your priority is protecting your job.

As a business owner, your primary concern may not be employees job security, but how the new machinery could reduce costs and increase profits.

How these objectives might conflict with each other

So we can see how stakeholders objectives may conflict. If employees get higher pay this will involve greater costs for the business. This means that profits will be reduced, so workers’ objective of higher pay conflicts with owners’ objective of higher profits.

There is a strong link between stakeholder conflict and unit 6 external influences on business activity, in particular how business decisions can impact on the environment and society.

For example, the owners’ objectives of a polluting factory may come into conflict with the stakeholder objectives of the local community who want to have clean air to breathe. The factory may have to close, relocate or invest in new equipment to decrease air pollution. This will result in higher costs for the factory owners and means their objective of increasing profits will not be achieved.

However, it’s important to remember that even within stakeholder groups there can be conflict over objectives. There may be some members of the local community who depend on a factory for jobs and income. Some factory owners may feel the long term profitability of the factory will be improved by investing in technology to reduce air pollution, as the business’s brand image will be improved.

1.5.3 Differences in the Objectives of Private Sector and Public Sector Enterprises

The public sector is government-owned and controlled, so their objectives are generally focused on providing a service to the public. The public sector is often government-funded or subsidised, so if a train service or a hospital can’t cover its costs and makes a loss, the government will guarantee the bills are paid.

In the private sector, businesses have to make enough revenue to cover their costs, or they will go bankrupt. Therefore, businesses in the private sector will commonly have the objectives of survival, growth or profit.

56 Strategic Objective Examples For Your Company To Copy

Strategic objectives are statements that indicate what is critical or important in your organizational strategy. We’ve outlined 56 of them to get you started.

FILED UNDER

This list of strategic objective examples should help you think through the various types of objectives that may work best in your organization. You’ll find all 56 of them categorized below by perspective and/or theme. Before we dive into the examples, let’s talk about how to choose the right ones for your organization. Once you have your list of objectives, you may want to consider choosing a software tool to help you track your progress.

In This Article

Your objectives are only part of your strategy. Use this step-by-step guide to define your entire strategic plan.

Choosing The Strategic Objectives That Work Best For You

Here’s some practical advice based on years of experience: Don’t put 56 objectives in your scorecard—that’s too many. You need to pick and choose. We recommend no more than 15 objectives maximum—you can read more about creating them here. But how do you know which objectives are right for your organization? It depends on your industry and your strategy.

Use this list of objectives to brainstorm what’s most important for your industry and your specific strategy, then build a set of objectives that best represent your organization.

Strategic Goals Based On Your Industry

What business are you in? If you’re operating in a fast-growing industry like IT, technical services, or construction, you should choose objectives that match your growth goals and include movement in a positive direction. For example, those might include launching a new product or increasing gross revenue within the next year. If you’re in a slow-growing industry, like sugar manufacturing or coal-power production, choose company objectives that focus on protecting your assets and managing expenses, such as reducing administrative costs by a certain percentage.

Strategic Goals Based On Your Strategy

What’s your strategy within your industry? Two similar businesses in the same industry can have two very different strategies. Your strategy will determine the objectives you set as much as your industry. (Here are 6 expert tips on strategic planning to consider as you’re going through the process.)

To further explain, here’s a business objectives example based on strategy. Think of two financial services companies: Goldman Sachs and E*TRADE. Both handle customer finances and investments, but (generally speaking) Goldman Sachs prioritizes high-touch, personal relationships, while E*TRADE values high-tech, self-service relationships. As a result, the two organizations undoubtedly have distinct objectives. From a marketing perspective, Goldman Sachs might focus on referrals and connections, and E*TRADE on social media and customer service automation. Or from an HR perspective, Goldman Sachs could set objectives based on retention and client relationships, and E*TRADE on technical skills and product development.

Your business could have the same mission and purpose as another, but if it takes a different approach to achieve that purpose, you should have a unique set of strategic objectives.

Strategic Objectives For Municipalities

It’s not uncommon to hear that municipalities or agencies don’t really have a strategy, but that’s a myth. If you look more closely at individual cities, you’ll see that some are growing quickly. and some are not. Cities with strong growth have chosen strategic objectives based on their specific socioeconomic situation. Yes—virtually all municipalities have goals based on balancing the budget and improving safety. But the most successful cities refine those high-level objectives. Does the city-planning portion of the budget need more focus than public utilities? Is street crime or retail crime more of a safety issue? Choosing objectives that function as answers to questions like these is the most strategic (and successful) approach for cities.

It’s also important to note that a municipality’s strategy must be specific to its economy and population, and it must be diverse. Goals cannot all be focused on a single source of revenue, such as tourism or manufacturing. For example, cities along the Gulf Coast have realized that when an oil spill occurs, a reliance on tourism is detrimental. They need a more resilient economy to build a healthy community. In short, municipal objectives should be diverse enough to withstand economic and environmental shifts.

Strategic Objectives For Healthcare

The healthcare industry is constantly changing. However, it’s crucial for healthcare organizations to continue to deliver effective, reliable care even as certain outside factors—medical practices, technology, and government regulations—evolve. So, although healthcare organizations can’t always predict (or control) the future, strategic planning is the best way for them to set a course for excellence while taking into account possible changes that may occur in the years ahead.

Economic trends, government policies, and technological advancements can help provide context for healthcare objectives, but each organization needs to consider what it would like to accomplish strategically. You obviously want great health outcomes, but where do finances fit in? And what about your staff, skills, and technology? For example, you may have an objective to optimize the use of real-time data to improve patient care but also have additional goals to develop a comprehensive employee wellness program or build trust in the community by improving your communications. Safety, quality, patient satisfaction, people, and finance are all areas of significance to consider.

56 Strategic Objective Examples

Below is a handy list of the 56 strategic objective examples; there are detailed definitions in each section.

While you can certainly use these for inspiration, we don’t recommend simply duplicating them for your strategy without putting in some thought. Use this list of objectives to brainstorm what’s most important for your industry and your specific strategy. Then, build a set of objectives that best represents your organization.

Note: Because the below objectives reflect different strategies, we’ve provided a few ideas on how you can customize these examples in each definition.

Financial Objectives

Financial objectives are typically written as financial goals. When selecting and creating your financial objectives, consider what you’re trying to accomplish financially within the time span of your strategic plan. Examples of strategic goals for this perspective include:

While all of the above objectives are valuable for maintaining a stable financial base for your organization, the most obvious strategic levers are:

However, other objectives may be more applicable, particularly if your organization is not driven by the need to be profitable but simply looking to improve its financial position. Consider your needs carefully; do you want to become more financially self-sufficient or maybe maximize your resources? These motivations should drive the financial objectives you choose.

Using a Strategic Plan Dashboard gives organizations the ability to visualize their progress towards important goals.

Customer Objectives

When looking at examples of a business’s customer objectives, you’ll see they are typically written like customer goals. Sometimes they are written in the form of a phrase or a statement that a customer would say when talking about your product or service.

These three objectives indicate the most basic needs customers want an organization to fulfill:

However, you have to understand your own customers in order to make them happy. So, to choose your customer objectives, think about what your customers are looking for specifically and set your objectives accordingly.

Internal Objectives

The internal perspective is typically focused on processes that your organization must excel at. According to Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema—who have written extensively on the topic—these examples of business strategy processes can be divided into three areas: innovation, customer intimacy, and operational excellence.

Innovation

All of the objectives from the above list help measure innovation in a general sense. However, there are countless ways to innovate; your objectives should reflect your specific approach. Maybe you’re trying to hit a performance target with your product or improve the quality of a particular product or service, for example. Express your desired innovation goal in whatever way is best for you.

Customer Service

Creating customer service objectives is a way to ensure your organization continuously maintains focus on this crucial area. In addition to the objectives listed above, consider which aspects of customer service are most relevant to your organization. You may want to improve your customer chat functionality, or, if you sell a software product, improve your customer onboarding process. The smoother your internal processes, the happier your customers.

Operational Excellence

Sometimes, objectives for operational excellence can be too vague, referring to “excellent” or “world-class” processes or “high-performing” teams. All of the above goals are specific and tied to various aspects of performance. And while you might be tempted to skip over operational excellence goals altogether, it’s important to invest time and resources in this area! Efficiency and cost-effectiveness are key to staying competitive, and achieving these objectives can have a positive impact on your company’s growth.

Regulatory (Optional)

If your organization is part of an industry where regulations apply, creating regulatory-related objectives not only helps you stay in compliance but can also help you grow. (Finding a better way to stay informed about new regulations could be an objective itself!) Goals in this area could apply to anything from increasing accountability to implementing risk management plans to streamlining compliance processes.

Learning & Growth (L&G) Objectives

Learning and growth objectives focus on skills, culture, and organizational capacity.

Learning and growth objectives support the employees responsible for carrying out your strategy, which makes this category of objectives extremely valuable. Classic objectives in this area are:

However, to make the most of these goals, first, take time to evaluate the specific capabilities required to deliver exceptional performance in your organization. Doing so will help you formulate more specific goals that will give your team the capabilities it needs to support your company’s growth—and improve employee satisfaction at the same time.

If you have questions about which of these strategic objective examples may work for you, drop us a line. We’re happy to help.