Organisational goals are strategic objectives that a company’s management establishes to outline expected outcomes and guide employees’ efforts.
There are many advantages to establishing organisational goals. They guide employee efforts, justify a company’s activities and existence, define performance standards, provide constraints for pursuing unnecessary goals and function as behavioral incentives.
For the goals to have business merit, organisations must craft a strategic plan for choosing and meeting them. A company’s big picture strategy also includes organisational goals.
Organisational goals are very important as they a business grow and achieve compliance, and establish its big picture financial objectives. Organisations set specific goals to help measure their progress and determine the tasks that must be improved.Goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely.
According to an entrepreneurship & business management expert, Dr Timi Olubiyi, today, businesses are faced with complex goals and strategies, coupled with different management and diverse employees from different background. In most cases, business strategies determine the success or failure of any business. The effective use of strategies helps to identify a path to achieving organisational mission and goals.
“It also helps identify and overcome barriers and obstacles in the way of successful implementation of organisational mission. However, efficiency is only possible if the strategies are aligned with the organisation’s mission.”
He noted that “in spite of the potency of strategy, the commitment of the top managers in mobilising workers and other resources towards the execution and implementation of the crafted strategy is paramount in determining the competitiveness of a company.
“Strategy implementation and execution is an action-oriented, ‘make-it-happen’ process involving people management, developing competencies and capabilities, budgeting, policy-making, motivating, culture-building and leadership. There are a number of companies with good strategies but unfortunately, they failed to institute structures, policies and necessary drives for the implementation of such strategies.”
He pointed out that “Nigeria boasts a very active, yet fragmented market. Consumer trends are constantly changing, while business partners and customers are often relegated to isolated pockets of the market. Therefore, it is necessary to acknowledge how opaque and challenging Nigeria’s market can be so that you can move forward with building a strategy that will help mitigate these challenges.”
For example, MTN Nigeria stated that “our strategic intent is to provide leading digital solutions for Nigeria’s progress, saying its products and services include a diverse range of voice, data, fintech, digital, enterprise, and wholesale services.”
While Dangote Cement Plc said its approach is built on the premise that sustainability must be owned and practised at every level of our organisation, especially at the highest levels of institutional governance.
It added that “the 7-Sustainability Pillars are embedded in our corporate culture and guide our approach to building a prosperous and sustainable business. Our 7-Dangote Sustainability Pillars, collectively reflect the ethos behind ‘The Dangote Way’.”
Set Strategic Planning Goals
In an ever-changing business world, it is imperative to have strategic goals and a plan to guide organisational efforts. Strategic goals are an organisation’s measurable objectives that are indicative of its long-term vision.
Purpose-driven
The starting point for crafting strategic goals is asking yourself what your company’s purpose and values are. What are you striving for, and why is it important to set these objectives? Let the answers to these questions guide the development of the organisation’s strategic goals.
Long-Term and Forward-focused
While strategic goals are the long-term objectives of the organisation, operational goals are the daily milestones that need to be reached to achieve them. When setting strategic goals, think of the company’s values and long-term vision, and ensure you’re not confusing strategic and operational goals.
Actionable
Strong strategic goals are not only long-term and forward-focused that are actionable. If there are not operational goals that your team can complete to reach the strategic goal, the organisation is better off spending time and resources elsewhere.
Measurable
When crafting strategic goals, it is important to define how progress and success will be measured.
