Business Aims and Objectives

Business aims and objectives definition

Business aims and objectives help guide a company's decisions and play a big part in deciding if the business will be successful.

Setting business aims and objectives

If business objectives are specific and measurable targets that help achieve business aims, we can consider them as steps taken by a company to reach its business aims. Objectives guide the next step to be taken to move closer to the company's aim. Objectives are also measured to make sure that all the right steps are orderly executed to achieve the aims.

To help managers and employees develop, manage and track objectives the right way, they create SMART objectives. This is a smarter way of creating objectives as it helps to put together an action plan, increase productivity, and track progress. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-oriented.

SMART Objectives for Businesses, StudySmarter

Examples of aims and objectives

Some common aims and objectives

Some of the common financial aims and objectives are:

• Increase revenue

• Increase profit margins

• Earn a return on investment

• Attain financial stability

Some of the common non-financial aims and objectives are:

• Employee satisfaction

• Customer satisfaction

• Social responsibility

• Relation with suppliers

Importance of business aims and objectives

Setting business aims and objectives is important for a couple of reasons:

• It provides clarity of direction, helping to prioritise efforts and allocate resources effectively.
• It helps measure company's success, allowing to track progress and make better decisions
• It increases motivation of the employees, by helping them understand long-term goals
• It improves decision-making process at all levels of the organisation.

In conclusion, setting aims and objectives is a critical part of effective business management. It provides direction, focuses efforts, and drives continuous progress, helping businesses to attain their goals and succeed in the long term.

Advantages of setting aims and objectives

Setting aims and objectives are very important for a company, as it is a key component in ensuring success. It guides the course of action and helps to keep employees focused and act responsibly. It ensures clarity within the whole organisation. It also has many other advantages.

Providing direction

A set aim guides a company and its employees in making the right decisions. It directs the company in the right manner.

Business planning

A goal or aim helps to understand what the right next step is. It helps in planning every step of the business.

Employee motivation

Having a goal to reach can improve employee motivation. It can be further improved by having an incentive system in place for the first employee to reach an objective.

Less stress

Having set objectives gives employees a means to measure how much they have done and keep track of their performance. This helps to avoid unnecessary stress which employees face when they are unaware of their overall performance rate.

Less wastage of time

Setting steps (objectives) to accomplish an aim helps to achieve the aim faster. Setting objectives tells an employee exactly what is to be done next, and this saves a lot of time and prevents the employee from performing any unnecessary tasks.

Business aims and objectives examples

Let's take a look at some examples of business aims and objectives for Amazon.

Examples of Amazon's business aims:

• Be the world's most customer-centric company
• Increase market share in e-commerce and become number-one company in the world
• Constantly improve customer experience through innovation

Examples of Amazon's business objectives:

• increase Prime membership by 10% in the next year
• launch two new products every year
• expand the international delivery network

As you can see, each objective helps to achieve the different business aims of the company. Of course, in reality, the relationships between goals and objectives are more complex.