High Level Corporate Objectives

ACCA P5 考试：High Level Corporate Objectives

1 Objectives and Goals

Having determined what the Mission of the organisation is, it is necessary for the organisation to decide on what it needs to achieve in more tangible terms. Many organisations then develop objectives and goals, which show what the organisation must do

to achieve its mission.

Some management writers distinguish between "goals" and "objectives" although many organisations use the terms interchangeably.

2 SMART Objectives

Objectives are more effective if they follow the "smart" principles.

A smart objective is an objective that is:

Specific—it must state exactly what is required.

Measurable—there must be a way to measure whether or not the objective has been achieved.

Agreed-by those who are responsible for achieving the objective.

Realistic—if objectives are not attainable, they will quickly lose credibility, and may become de-motivating to those who are responsible to achieve them.

Time bound—there should be a specific date by which achievement of the objective in planned.

3 Corporate Objectives

Corporate objectives are objectives that apply to the organisation as a whole. They concern the long-term plan and direction of the business.

3.1 Developing Corporate Objectives

In order to develop corporate objectives, organisations may employ a number of tools, such as the following:

Environmental analysis tools in order to analyse the environment within which the business operates, or the environment into which the business is considering moving.

SWOT analysis in order to understand its own strengths and weaknesses.

Stakeholder analysis—see below. In order to ensure that the needs of the various stakeholder groups are taken into account.

3.2 Primary and Secondary Corporate Objectives

Where the organisation has many corporate objectives, these may be ranked into primary and secondary corporate objectives. The secondary corporate objectives support the primary objective.

In some cases, the secondary corporate objectives may actually conflict with the primary. For example, the primary objectives may focus on increasing profitability, while the secondary objectives may focus on staff welfare. Providing staff welfare may reduce profitability.