Business.gov.au have published a step-by-step guide on how to set business goals and objectives.
Business.gov.au emphasise the need for business owners to take the time to set goals and objectives, especially now, in a new financial year.
“The new financial year is a great time to have a look at your business goals, see how you’re tracking on goals you have in place, and set some new ones for the coming year.”
The guide focuses on preparation for setting goals, setting goals, achieving goals and knowing whether a business has achieved them.
The guide emphasises to business owners that preparing to set goals involves knowing what areas their business needs to improve on or at least could improve on. To be able to make that assessment, the guide recommends strategies such as a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, benchmarking and market research.
In regards to setting goals, the guide recommends focusing on SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely) goals. SMART goals involve business owners being clear about what they want to achieve, making sure the goal can be measured, checking that they have the time and resources to achieve the goals, checking that the goals are relevant to their business and that a realistic deadline for meeting the goal has been set. The guide provides an example of a SMART goal.
The guide emphasises that to achieve goals, a business owner must figure out the right strategy to do so and that a strategy must incorporate several aspects, including but not limited to: time frame, actions, responsibilities, resources and what the desired outcome is.
The guide suggests that business owners implement a system to measure their goals and keep them on track to achieve them.
Business.gov.au’s step-by-step guide on how to set business goals and objectives, as well as links to relevant goal-setting information, can be found and read in full here.
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