Aims and Objectives

A successful business plan should incorporate a set of targets and objectives.
While the overall plan may set strategic goals, these are unlikely to be achieved unless you use SMART objectives or targets, ie Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
Targets help everyone within a business understand what they need to achieve and when they need to achieve it.
You can monitor the performance of employees, teams or a new product or service by using appropriate performance indicators. These can be:

• sales or profit figures over a given period
• milestones in new product development
• productivity benchmarks for individual team members
• market-share statistics

Targets make it clearer for individual employees to see where they fit within an organisation and what they need to do to help the business meet its objectives. Setting clear objectives and targets and closely monitoring their delivery can make the development of your business more effective. Targets and objectives should also form a key part of employee performance reviews or appraisals, as a means of objectively addressing individuals' progress.