Aims

• Aims are the long-term aspirational goals of an organization.

• The aims of the organization form the basis of its business plan or strategic plan for the future.

• Aims are general but succinct statements of purpose, such as “to grow our business in Asian markets”

• They can be implied in the mission statement of an organization.

• Aims also act as a benchmark to which managers and employees can be held accountable, or be rewarded, i.e. aims act as a measure of results and success.

Objectives

• Organizational objectives are the clearly defined and measurable targets of a business, used to to achieve its aims. Examples include "to generate greater shareholder value by targeting new market segments" or "to achieve sales growth of $100 million in Asian markets in 2021”.

• They are often based on the Peter Drucker’s SMART objectives acronym: Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, and Time specific. An example of a SMART objective for a multinational company might be "to achieve sales of €10 million in European markets in 2020."

• Alternatives for the 'A' and 'R' in SMART are: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-related.

• Objectives can be long term (strategic objectives), medium term (tactical objectives) or short term (operational objectives).

• Tactical objectives are easier to change or reverse than strategic objectives. They are specific targets with definitive timelines.

• Operational objectives are the day-to-day targets of departments within an organization.

• Strategic objectives are targets that the whole organization is striving to achieve. It require a greater investment in human and financial resources than tactical and operational objectives. It is often related to what the owners of the business want to focus on, such as business survival, growth, or profit maximization.

• Like aims and mission statements, objectives can give employees and managers a genuine sense of direction (and purpose). Hence, they can help to motivate employees and raise productivity.

• Organizational objectives are essential in all businesses so that people know where they are striving to go or what they are trying to accomplish.

• They give people a sense of common purpose, thus promote a greater sense of belonging and team spirit (cohesiveness).

• Organizational objectives enable businesses to measure progress towards to their stated aims.

Examples of organizational objectives include:

Organizations will have varying objectives. For example, public sector organizations, charities and cooperatives will not primarily strive for profit maximization, whereas private sector firms are likely to do so. Organizational objectives also change due to changes in the external business environment (see ATL Activity 2 below).

Strategies

• Strategies are the actions in which a business plans to reach its long-term organizational aims and corporate-wide objectives.

• Examples of these strategic decisions include: diversification, overseas expansion, and mergers or takeovers (see Unit 1.6 Growth and evolution).

• Strategies used to achieve the strategic objectives are decided by the senior leadership team or board of directors.

• Strategies also affect and are affected by the functional areas of business: human resources strategies (see Unit 2), finance strategies (see Unit 3), marketing strategies (see Unit 4), and operations management strategies (Unit 5).

Tactics

• Tactics are the shorter term approaches to achieving (tactical and operation) objectives.

• They are the methods used by an organization to meet specific and measurable goals.

• They are used by the workforce to work towards achieving the strategic objectives of the organization.

Aims, objectives, strategies, and tactics, and their relationship