The disadvantages of business objectives include the inability to please everyone and the potential that workers will exploit each other in an effort to achieve such objectives. That said, a firm set of objectives can be beneficial for most businesses and may lead to consistent success.

What Are Business Objectives?

Basically, a business objective is a short- or long-term goal that your organization works to achieve. Most business objectives are future-oriented, although this may not always be the case. Objectives are important for businesses because they can help to focus the efforts of an organization. An objective can be as simple as turning a profit, completing a project, or achieving some other goal.

You may also hear a business's objective referred to as its:

  • Ambition.
  • Achievement.
  • Aim.
  • Goal.
  • Mission.

Some business objectives can be broad, while others may be very narrow in scope. Developing objectives for your business is very important for several different reasons:

  1. They can help to increase your market share.
  2. They improve cooperation within your organization.
  3. They increase worker output.
  4. They make it easier to control costs.
  5. They can strengthen relationships between employers and employees.

Advantages of Strong Business Objectives

Developing clear business objectives can be very beneficial to your organization. In particular, business objectives allow management to be more effective when interacting with employees, which leads to a well-functioning business. One of the biggest advantages of business objectives is that they can make proper planning easier. With a clear objective in mind, developing a plan to achieve the objective is much simpler.

Business objectives can also be a useful tool for motivating everyone within your organization. When they know what they're working towards, as well as the benefits of achieving the objective, employees at every level of your business will be able to stay on task.

Coordinating workers in different parts of your organization can be difficult, especially if those workers don't know what they are trying to accomplish. When you institute firm business objectives, every manager will know how to direct their employees, and managers in different departments will be able to coordinate more effectively.

How to Set Goals

If you want to set goals or objectives for your business, there are several methods you could choose, including the SMART method. Under the SMART method, your business objectives should be:

  • Specific.
  • Measurable.
  • Attainable.
  • Relevant.

The last letter in the SMART method, "T," stands for time frame. With every business objective that you set, you should be sure that you also institute a time frame for completing the objective.

Employees can benefit greatly from business objectives, as working towards and completing objectives can give employees an idea of how they are progressing within the organization. You must be careful when setting objectives, however, as improper goal planning can cause issues in your business.

Disadvantages of Business Objectives

While setting business objectives and goals can be very beneficial, there are also some disadvantages that you should keep in mind. First and foremost, setting goals can put pressure on your workers, especially if they had no input in setting the objective. For example, if you decide that you want your workers to increase their output by 50 percent, they are likely to feel a great deal of pressure to reach this objective. Such pressure is likely to interfere with their performance and make achieving the goal more difficult.

Another drawback of business objectives is that they can easily cause your employees to feel like a failure if they are unable to reach the objective. While your business goals should certainly be somewhat challenging, they should be achievable. Setting goals that your employees are unlikely to reach will create a sense of failure that may spread throughout the organization.

Business objectives can also be demotivating if you don't plan them properly. If an objective is vague, for instance, it will be difficult for your employees to find the motivation to work towards the objective. Goals that are unreasonably difficult can also be demotivating. In some cases, business objectives can cause your employees to ignore other tasks. If an objective is very important, your employees will likely put all of their efforts towards that one goal, causing their other duties to fall to the wayside.

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