Aims and objectives

Business activity is focused around the achievement of appropriate business goals. These can be categorised into business aims and business objectives

A business aim is the goal a business wants to achieve. It may have several aims. In the private sector businesses aim to make a profit. Others aim to survive as a primary aim, as survival is necessary for the business to continue. Other aims include: expanding, maximising sales, to be more competitive and to be environmentally friendly.

A business objective is a detailed picture of a step you plan to take in order to achieve a stated aim. These need to be SMART in order for the business to know what progress it has made towards achieving the objective. SMART objectives are developed in the theory section 'Setting aims and objectives'.

Production aims for a company like Coca-Cola or Nissan will focus on quality and meeting particular targets and standards.

Marketing aims for a company like Kellogg's or Kraft will focus on identifying and meeting the needs of consumers.

Customer service aims for organisations like the Inland Revenue or Argos will focus on delighting customers.

Business objectives, and functional objectives make it possible to set targets. These targets then create a direction for activities.

Objectives

The overarching aims of an organisation can be translated into specific activity objectives. For example, a section head in a supermarket may have the objective at the end of each working day to make sure that there are enough employees scheduled to carry out the required work activities on the following day. Individual employees will have their own work objectives and schedules - e.g. to make sure that a particular section of shelves are filled by a given time.

Objectives therefore provide a clear structure for all of the various activities that an organisation carries out. By measuring how well an objective has or has not been achieved, managers can make necessary changes to their activities to ensure progress and achievement of the stated objectives are made within the timescale allocated.


Objectives within an organisation are established at a number of levels from top level corporate objectives, down to team objectives and individual objectives that create a framework for operational activities.