We explain what the objectives of an organization are and how they are classified. How they are established, and some examples.
What are organizational objectives?
In corporate language, organizational objectives are called desired situations that every company seeks to achieve in the different areas that comprise it or that are of interest, and that materialize the desire contained in its mission and vision through achievable goals.
Like any objective, once these goals are achieved, new ones will be chosen and so on, guiding the progress of the organization based on its future projection. It can be said that the objectives are the indicators on the path to be followed by the company, which also serve to measure its performance: a successful company is expected to meet most of the objectives it has set.
On the other hand, the objectives of a company provide it with its legitimacy, since a company that does not achieve its goals will not be able to convince future clients or investors.
The objectives of an organization are determined based on your initial plan or your strategic direction which also includes the response to accidents and unforeseen events that arise from the environment in which it operates. Recovery from challenging situations, overcoming unexpected challenges or difficulties arising within the market, are just some possibilities for organizational objectives of external origin.
On the contrary, the growth of the payroll of workers, the maximization of the efficiency of the processes, the expansion towards new horizons, are objectives of internal origin.
Types of organizational objectives
Organizational objectives are classified based on their projection over time, that is, in the history of the organization. Thus, there are three different types:
- Long term Those compliance objectives in a remote future time. They are also known as strategic objectives, since they guide the medium and short term objectives when defining the future of the company.
- Medium term Known as tactical objectives, they are an intermediate instance between long-term and short-term objectives, serving as an adaptation by areas of the company of the plans necessary to meet the general objective.
- Short term These immediate compliance objectives (in a range of less than one year) are designed to address specific situations close in time, and are usually broken down by productive unit or even employee. Medium and short-term objectives depend on the daily fulfillment of these objectives, within the framework of which they must be focused.
How are organizational objectives established?
To establish the organizational objectives of a company, a logical methodology is needed that takes into account the following:
- Mission and vision of the company Everything contained in the mission and vision is key to determining the general objective of the company, and from there the series of specific objectives that emerge. At the end of the day, they are the mission of the organization.
- Business priorities and their scale The company's priority scale must be planned, that is, which tasks are urgent and which are not, which are the most important and which are superfluous. Only in this way can certain and applicable objectives be had.
- Identification of business standards It is necessary to define the cost, feasibility and time of each objective, according to the capabilities and convenience of the company, since these measures will serve as control and oversight for the fulfillment of the goals and their eventual modification or adaptation.
Examples of organizational objectives
Some possible examples of organizational objectives may be:
- Maximize annual profits.
- Grow to double the staff payroll.
- Expand into a new market.
- Recover capital lost during a crisis.
- Minimize investment risks.
- Increase market share.
- Achieve projected profits.
- Surviving the depression of the commercial sector.
