Business Objectives - They set themselves objectives that state the way that they operate.

Business Objectives

All businesses exist to provide goods and services that satisfy the customers needs. They set themselves objectives that state the way that they operate. These commonly are: -

Making a profit (or surplus)
Increasing sales or market share
Surviving
Providing services to the community
Offering charitable or non-profit services, such as caring for the environment
Developing staff skills
Producing high-quality products or offering high-quality service

Having clear and focused business objectives gives the business a clear indication of which direction it is heading in. It can also help to judge how successful the business has been.

Objective 1: Making a profit (or surplus)

The first objective of any business is to make a profit. Without profit, a business cannot do all that it wants to achieve. Profit is defined as the difference between the total revenue of the business and the total cost of running it. If the business fails to make a profit, it can have a number of serious consequences. It cannot keep its shareholders happy, it cannot invest in better technology and therefore improve its products, customer confidence in the company drops, and staff morale also drops as they start to worry about their jobs and also worry about being paid. It also means that they cannot reward their employees for good work or give money to charities, as that is a good chance to improve their public relations opportunities. Making a profit is none more important than in the world of football. The richest clubs can afford to buy the best players and pay them huge sums of money, therefore increasing their chances of success. With all these players, the chances are that they will play an exciting style of football and the fans will keep coming to watch, thus increasing their profit.

Making a surplus is where a not-for-profit organisation will make money through charity shops but will then give it away to worthwhile causes.

Objective 2: Increasing sales or market share

Many businesses strive to be market leaders and will fight very hard to achieve it. They are all too aware of the importance of this as the company that does this is best placed to make large profits. A company which has a large market share can mass produce products and can buy products and materials at a discount from suppliers. The company can then spend more on advertising etc. Once the business has established itself as a market leader, it ploughs money into investment, product promotion and research and development to keep hold of that status. An American study found out that organisations with the largest market share were likely to be the most profitable. Market share can also lead to lower costs as if the total output produced increases over time, the cost of producing each unit will fall. The more you do something the more experience you get, and so next time it is likely to be better as you can iron out any faults. Subsequently, companies that have a high market share should have accumulated more experience, and therefore companies should try and get a high market share. The best indicator is the ratio of one company's market share to that of its nearest competitor.

Objective 3: Surviving

One of the main objectives of business primarily to survive. The survival of the business depends on it making enough profit in order to make it worthwhile to continue. Many businesses go out of business because they are not making enough profit and the owner/owners lose interest and feel that it is not worth investing more money or putting more time and effort in. You don't have to make a profit to survive, just simply avoiding making a loss can help a company survive. Some businesses may have to obey new legislation and if don't they ...

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Objective 3: Surviving

Objective 4: Providing services to the community

Businesses do not exist just to make a profit; there are other businesses that exist to also provide other services. One of these is to provide a service for the local community. One of these such businesses is the Post Office. It is set up to make profits but it also has offices in small villages where there is very little demand for them, but it also does not want to anger customers who use them, even it does not make sense to economically do so. If it solely concentrated on profits, it would not do any of this. These types of organisations also include elements of public service businesses.

Objective 5: Offering charitable or non-profit services

An organisation coming into this sector of the economy has very different objectives to those in the 'for-profit' sector. These organisations will measure their success by using other objectives, most commonly to provide funds for worthwhile causes. Because they don't make profits, they have to cut out other unnecessary spending to actually make any sort of money at all to give away. Caring for the environment is one of the major areas of charitable work. Organisations such as Greenpeace raise awareness of their situation through advertising campaigns and hope to recruit volunteers and receive public donations to carry out their work of saving wildlife and habitats.

Objective 6: Developing staff skills

The importance of people in an organisation cannot be underestimated. Most companies today include dealing with and developing their staff as one of their objectives. Businesses have realised that intelligent employees can add millions of pounds to the value of their company. They can have a number of different attributes, like having good I.C.T. skills to good communication and interaction with customers and other staff. They also need to use initiative in certain situations and should be able to work effectively when in problem-solving situations. The most successful organisations have therefore developed training schemes to find people with these type of skills in order to find a workforce that has a wide range of skills and one that can work effectively together to achieve their goals.

Objective 7: Producing high-quality products or offering high-quality services

When the term high quality is mentioned it does not necessarily mean that it is the most expensive. Many high quality products can be made with as little money as possible, and very often this is the case as the most money quite often means that it is not the best quality. A better way of defining quality is how well it does its job and how well it satisfies the customer, or goes even further than that. Therefore, this has become one of the major objectives of the leading business organisations. Customers will choose which product to use on how well it satisfies them. That is, the product that gives them the best quality and the job they want it to do for the lowest price. The same applies to services. For instance, Internet shopping has taken off because it much more convenient for most people and saves on petrol costs. Companies have picked up on this and others are also joining the market to increase competition and therefore force other companies to improve their service.

ChevronTexaco's Business Objectives

ChevronTexaco's business objectives are outlined in 'The ChevronTexaco Way', a set of values that help to govern the company. They are broken down into four categories, People, Values, Vision and Performance.

People

Dynamic Leaders embody our values, set bold and competitive visions, and deliver results with urgency. They clearly explain strategies, embrace the rate and necessity of change, inspire innovation and shape top performance. They take personal accountability for performance and growth.

Skilled Employees have the knowledge, skills and behaviours critical to achieving our goals and providing customer solutions. They are committed to and supported in personal development.

Learning & Innovation are constants. We learn from the best, innovate, share knowledge and rapidly apply new ideas across the company and for customer benefit.

Recognition & Accountability mean we define expectations, measure and evaluate performance, and reward superior achievement.

World-Class Processes & Organisation, in tandem, are potent elements of superior performance. We develop and quickly deploy processes critical to our strategic intents. We have an empowered, decentralised organisation to enhance speed of execution and customer responsiveness.

Technology & Partnerships help us extend our capabilities. We gain and apply technology and leverage partnerships.

Performance

Operational excellence through safe, reliable, efficient and environmentally sound operations

Cost Reduction by lowering unit costs through innovation and technology

Capital Stewardship by investing in the best project opportunities and executing them successfully (safer, faster, at lower cost)

Profitable Growth through leadership in developing new business opportunities in both existing and new markets.

Community Outreach Reach out to the community and engage in open dialogue to build trust.

Emergency Management Prevention is a first priority, but be prepared for any emergency and mitigate any incident quickly and effectively.

Vision

Providing energy services and products that are vital to society’s quality of life.

Being Known as people with superior capabilities and commitment both as individuals and as an organisation.

Thinking and Behaving globally and valuing the positive influence this has on our company.

Being the Partner of choice as we best exemplify collaboration.

Delivering world-class performance

Earning the admiration of our stakeholders-investors, customers, host governments, local communities and our employees-not only for the goals we achieve but how we achieve them.