56 Strategic Objectives Examples to Inspire Your Company's Strategy

Strategic objectives are statements that indicate what is critical or important in your organizational strategy. In other words, they’re goals you’re trying to achieve in a certain period of time—typically 3-5 years. Your objectives link out to your measures and initiatives.  Objectives are a key part of your Balanced Scorecard -- along with measures and initiatives.

This list of strategic objective examples should help you think through the various types of objectives that may work best in your organization. You’ll find all 56 of them categorized below by perspective and/or theme. Before we dive into the examples, let’s talk about how to choose the right ones for your organization. Once you have your list of objectives, you may want to consider choosing a software tool to help you track your progress.

ClearPoint Strategy offers a powerful platform designed to help you create, manage, and track your strategic objectives effectively, ensuring that your entire organization is aligned and focused. Our software offers intuitive tools that simplify the creation and management of strategic objectives, helping you monitor progress and ensure that your initiatives are on track.

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Choosing The Right Strategic Objectives

Here’s some practical advice based on years of experience: Don’t put 56 objectives in your scorecard—that’s too many. You need to pick and choose. We recommend no more than 15 objectives maximum—you can read more about creating them here. But how do you know which objectives are right for your organization? It depends on your industry and your strategy.

Use this list of objectives to brainstorm what’s most important for your industry and your specific strategy, then build a set of objectives that best represent your organization.

Strategic Goals Based On Your Industry

What business are you in? If you’re operating in a fast-growing industry like IT, technical services, or construction, you should choose objectives that match your growth goals and include movement in a positive direction.

For example, those might include launching a new product or increasing gross revenue within the next year. If you’re in a slow-growing industry, like sugar manufacturing or coal-power production, choose company objectives that focus on protecting your assets and managing expenses, such as reducing administrative costs by a certain percentage.

Strategic Objectives For Municipalities

It’s not uncommon to hear that municipalities or agencies don’t really have a strategy, but that’s a myth. If you look more closely at individual cities, you’ll see that some are growing quickly...and some are not. Cities with strong growth have chosen strategic objectives based on their specific socioeconomic situation. Yes—virtually all municipalities have goals based on balancing the budget and improving safety.

But the most successful cities refine those high-level objectives. Does the city-planning portion of the budget need more focus than public utilities? Is street crime or retail crime more of a safety issue? Choosing objectives that function as answers to questions like these is the most strategic (and successful) approach for cities.

It’s also important to note that a municipality’s strategy must be specific to its economy and population, and it must be diverse. Goals cannot all be focused on a single source of revenue, such as tourism or manufacturing. For example, cities along the Gulf Coast have realized that when an oil spill occurs, a reliance on tourism is detrimental. They need a more resilient economy to build a healthy community.

In short, municipal objectives should be diverse enough to withstand economic and environmental shifts.

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Strategic Objectives For Healthcare

The healthcare industry is constantly changing. However, it’s crucial for healthcare organizations to continue to deliver effective, reliable care even as certain outside factors—medical practices, technology, and government regulations—evolve.

So, although healthcare organizations can’t always predict (or control) the future, strategic planning is the best way for them to set a course for excellence while taking into account possible changes that may occur in the years ahead.

Economic trends, government policies, and technological advancements can help provide context for healthcare objectives, but each organization needs to consider what it would like to accomplish strategically. You obviously want great health outcomes, but where do finances fit in? And what about your staff, skills, and technology?

For example, you may have an objective to optimize the use of real-time data to improve patient care but also have additional goals to develop a comprehensive employee wellness program or build trust in the community by improving your communications. Safety, quality, patient satisfaction, people, and finance are all areas of significance to consider.

Strategic Goals Based On Your Strategy

What’s your strategy within your industry? Two similar businesses in the same industry can have two very different strategies. Your strategy will determine the objectives you set as much as your industry. (Here are 6 expert tips on strategic planning to consider as you're going through the process.)

To further explain, here’s a business objectives example based on strategy. Think of two financial services companies: Goldman Sachs and E*TRADE. Both handle customer finances and investments, but (generally speaking) Goldman Sachs prioritizes high-touch, personal relationships, while E*TRADE values high-tech, self-service relationships. As a result, the two organizations undoubtedly have distinct objectives.

From a marketing perspective, Goldman Sachs might focus on referrals and connections, and E*TRADE on social media and customer service automation. Or from an HR perspective, Goldman Sachs could set objectives based on retention and client relationships, and E*TRADE on technical skills and product development.

Your business could have the same mission and purpose as another, but if it takes a different approach to achieve that purpose, you should have a unique set of strategic objectives.

56 Strategic Objective Examples

While you can certainly use these for inspiration, we don’t recommend simply duplicating them for your strategy without putting in some thought. Use this list of objectives to brainstorm what’s most important for your industry and your specific strategy. Then, build a set of objectives that best represents your organization.

Note: Because the below objectives reflect different strategies, we’ve provided a few ideas on how you can customize these examples in each definition.

Financial Objectives

Financial objectives are typically written as financial goals. When selecting and creating your financial objectives, consider what you’re trying to accomplish financially within the time span of your strategic plan. Examples of strategic goals for this perspective include:

1. Grow shareholder value: The top goal of your organization may be to increase the value of your organization for your shareholders, stakeholders, or owners. Value can be defined in many ways, so this would need to be clearly defined.
2. Grow earnings per share: This objective implies your organization is trying to increase its earnings or profits. For publicly traded companies, a common way to look at this is through “earnings per share.” This can be measured quarterly and/or annually.
3. Increase revenue: Revenue represents growth in your organization, so increasing revenue is a sign of company health. You can make this more specific by defining revenue from a key area in your organization.
4. Manage cost: On the other side of revenue is the costs or expenses in your business. As you grow (or shrink) you need to carefully manage cost—so this may be an important objective for you.
5. Maintain appropriate financial leverage: Many organizations use debt—another word for financial leverage—as a key financial tool. There may be an optimal amount of debt you’d like to stay within.
6. Ensure favorable bond ratings: For some organizations, bond ratings are a sign of healthy finances. This is a regularly occurring objective for a public sector scorecard.
7. Balance the budget: A balanced budget reflects the discipline of good planning, budgeting, and management. It is also one that is typically seen in the public sector—or within divisions or departments of other organizations.
8. Ensure financial sustainability: If your organization is in growth mode or has an uncertain economic environment, you need to be sure you remain financially stable. Sometimes this means seeking outside sources of revenue or managing costs that are appropriate to your operations.
9. Maintain profitability: This is a solid top-level objective that shows balance between revenue and expenses. If your organization is investing in order to grow, you may look to an objective like this to govern how much you are able to invest.
10. Diversify and grow revenue streams: Some organizations receive revenue from multiple sources or products and services. They set an objective to grow revenue in different areas to ensure that the organization is stable and not subject to risk associated with only one revenue stream.

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Customer Objectives

When looking at examples of a business’s customer objectives, you’ll see they are typically written like customer goals. Sometimes they are written in the form of a phrase or a statement that a customer would say when talking about your product or service.

11. Best value for the cost: This means that your customers know they are not purchasing the most expensive product or service—or even the highest quality—but that they are getting the best deal. This may mean your customers are paying less than average and getting an average or above-average product.
12. Broad product offering: This objective works if your strategy is to be able to offer the customer the best product in its class, regardless of price. In the hotel industry, for example, this could reflect the strategy of the Four Seasons or Ritz Carlton.
13. Reliable products/services: If your organization takes pride in the reliability of your product or service, this objective—which reflects that you are targeting customers that also value this reliability—may be right for you. This could indicate the on-time reliability of an airline or the dependable reliability of a printer that generates high-quality output.
14. Cross-sell more products: Some organizations—like banks or office product companies—focus on selling more products to the same customers. This strategy acknowledges that you already have the customer but can make money by selling them more.
15. Increase share of market: This customer strategy focuses on selling to more customers, thus increasing the market share. For example, if your organization is a landscape company, you are likely trying to reach more households—or if your organization is a hospital, you likely want more of the local population to use your services.
16. Increase share of wallet: This customer strategy focuses on gaining more purchases from the same customers. If you sell fertilizer, for example, you want each customer to purchase a larger percentage of their fertilizer spend with your organization rather than with your competitors.
17. Partner with customers to provide solutions: This strategy reflects customer intimacy. As part of this strategy, you may deliver service-oriented solutions or have customers participate in research and development with your organization. Partnering comes at a cost but tends to foster more customer loyalty across your organization.
18. Best service: This strategy indicates you want your customers to consider your organization easy to deal with. Customers may choose to work with you even if you have a product similar to your competitors—simply because your service is better.
19. Understands my needs: This objective also reflects a customer intimacy strategy. The customer feels like you understand their needs, so they choose your organization's products and services because they are targeted for their specific problem or situation.

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Internal Process Objectives

The internal perspective is typically focused on processes that your organization must excel at. According to Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema—who have written extensively on the topic—these examples of business strategy processes can be divided into three areas: innovation, customer intimacy, and operational excellence.

Innovation

All of the objectives from the list below help measure innovation in a general sense. However, there are countless ways to innovate; your objectives should reflect your specific approach. Maybe you’re trying to hit a performance target with your product or improve the quality of a particular product or service, for example. Express your desired innovation goal in whatever way is best for you.

20. Most innovative products/services: This objective is for organizations that pride themselves on constant and cutting-edge innovation. You would first need to define what you mean by “innovation” and how you’re innovating in each particular area.
21. Differentiate the product: Your organization might use this objective if you are in an environment where the customer cannot tell the difference between your organization and another organization’s product. You are asking your organization to either develop new services around the product or new differentiating features of the product or service.
22. Invest a certain amount in innovation: Sometimes organizations use an objective like this to drive investment in research and development or other innovative activities. This objective may be used in a strategy when you are signaling a shift in investments in the innovation category.
23. Grow percentage of sales from new products: Similar to investing in innovation, this objective focuses on the outcome your organization is hoping to achieve. It forces you to constantly innovate, even on your most successful products.
24. Improve or focus research and development (R&D): This objective focuses on specific innovation. If you are an organization with multiple product lines, you might want to focus your innovation on one product line over another; calling out the specific direction can be quite helpful in your objective.
25. Acquire new customers from innovative offerings: This objective focuses on the reason you put focus on innovation. For example, you may be innovating in order to enter a new market or attract customers you might not be able to reach with your current offerings.

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Customer Service

Creating customer service objectives is a way to ensure your organization continuously maintains focus on this crucial area. In addition to the objectives listed above, consider which aspects of customer service are most relevant to your organization. You may want to improve your customer chat functionality, or, if you sell a software product, improve your customer onboarding process. The smoother your internal processes, the happier your customers.

26. Great customer service: Defining what great customer service means in your organization is a way to set the standard and communicate internally. For example, hone in on whether you want to provide one-touch resolution or proactive support, or whether you’re focused on phone support or on-site support.
27. Improve customer service: When your organization has a problem with good customer service, you may want an objective to focus on improvement therein. The problem your company has is likely in a specific area, so this objective should be focused on that particular call center or the reactive support that you provide.
28. Invest in customer management: This objective is typically used when your strategy is to focus more on your customer management processes than you have in the past.
29. Partner with customers to design solutions: Some organizations focus on forming close partnerships with their clients. If your business is an architectural firm or a custom software developer company, this could be a good objective to ensure you are working with your customers to design critical solutions.
30. Improve customer satisfaction: If customer satisfaction is critical in your company, this may be a good objective to hone in on. Because it’s generic, the definition for your organization needs to be more focused around particular areas of satisfaction you place focus on.
31. Improve customer retention: If your organization wants to focus on retaining current customers, this objective may work for you. You’d likely want to set measures and projects around certain activities to help retain customers.
32. Develop and use a customer database: This is a specific objective focused on implementing a large project like a customer relationship management (CRM) system, that could take years to implement.

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Operational Excellence

Sometimes, objectives for operational excellence can be too vague, referring to “excellent” or “world-class” processes or “high-performing” teams. All of the above goals are specific and tied to various aspects of performance. And while you might be tempted to skip over operational excellence goals altogether, it’s important to invest time and resources in this area! Efficiency and cost-effectiveness are key to staying competitive, and achieving these objectives can have a positive impact on your company’s growth.

33. Reduce cost by a certain amount annually: This objective focuses on reducing costs—typically costs within a product or service that is an offering (to make that particular product or service more effective). It could also focus on reducing overhead costs across your organization.
34. Reduce waste by a certain amount: If your organization uses a lot of raw materials, a typical objective is to reduce waste from that process. This usually results in significant cost savings.
35. Invest in Total Quality Management: Total Quality Management (TQM) reflects a process around quality improvement, which can mean doing things more efficiently or effectively. This objective is used in organizations that have implemented (or are implementing) TQM.
36. Reduce error rates: This objective applies for organizations that have many repeatable processes. Sometimes this results in Six Sigma projects, and other times the result is just a focus on defining processes so that staff can adhere to these processes.
37. Improve and maintain workplace safety: If your organization uses heavy equipment, chemicals, mechanical parts, or machinery, focusing on workplace safety is a good objective. Improving it can reduce costs and improve job satisfaction.
38. Reduce energy usage per unit of production: If your organization uses a significant amount of energy, making a goal to reduce this can be an effective and important strategy.
39. Capitalize on physical facilities: In retail organizations, this could mean focusing on an appropriate storefront location. Or it could mean finding underutilized assets and either using them or selling/leasing them to others for use.
40. Streamline core business processes: Many complex organizations have very long, drawn-out processes that have developed over many years. If your organization is looking at these processes, this could be a key objective for you.
41. Increase reliability of operations: If your organization has poor reliability, having an objective like this will encourage management to look at investments and changes in processes that could increase this reliability.

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Regulatory (Optional)

If your organization is part of an industry where regulations apply, creating regulatory-related objectives not only helps you stay in compliance but can also help you grow. (Finding a better way to stay informed about new regulations could be an objective itself!) Goals in this area could apply to anything from increasing accountability to implementing risk management plans to streamlining compliance processes.

42. Ensure compliance: In a regulated environment, there may be a lot of rules that you need to follow, even if they don’t seem strategic. They are often called “strategic objectives” to ensure no one cuts corners.
43. Increase recycling: This is a self-explanatory objective, but can sometimes apply to all aspects of waste. Depending on the organization, there are compliance rules around making this happen.
44. Improve reporting and transparency: Organizations just entering a regulatory environment or that are trying to change their business model to meet contract needs may find that they need to improve or change the way they report in order to do better cost accounting or just be more clear about their actions.
45. Increase community outreach: For some organizations, it is important to be seen as part of the community. This is especially true for organizations that are either selling a necessity in the community or are creating any kind of negative externality (like pollution).
46. Optimize control framework: If you’re a regulated organization in an incentive environment, you may need to make sure you have the proper controls in place to avoid one-off or systematic cheating.

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Learning & Growth (L&G) Objectives

Learning and growth objectives focus on skills, culture, and organizational capacity. They support the employees responsible for carrying out your strategy, which makes this category of objectives extremely valuable. To make the most of these goals, first, take time to evaluate the specific capabilities required to deliver exceptional performance in your organization. Doing so will help you formulate more specific goals that will give your team the capabilities it needs to support your company’s growth—and improve employee satisfaction at the same time.

47. Improve technical and analytical skills: With the increasing advance of computers and technical innovations affecting all industries, this is a common objective for some organizations. Specific technical skills—or a more specific definition—may be included in the objective name.
48. Improve a certain skill: This is seen in a goal if an organization is either affected by a new competitive environment or is trying to address a new market. The particular skill would be specific to the organization. This is also seen in organizations with an aging workforce without a clear means to replace highly technical skills.
49. Create a performance-focused culture: This objective can be used if your organization is trying to change its culture to one that focuses more on performance management or incentives. This objective shows up a lot in government and nonprofit organizations.
50. Improve productivity with cross-functional teams: Large companies see synergies from working together but want to encourage staff to help with this. For example, a bank with multiple products or a multinational company with multiple lines of business may use this objective.
51. Invest in tools to make staff more productive: If your organization has the right staff, but the staff does not have the right tools for the job, this may be a critical objective.
52. Improve employee retention: This objective is common in learning and growth and may focus on skills, culture, pay, and the overall work environment.
53. Attract and retain the best people: This is a good “beginner objective” if your organization is just starting to use the Balanced Scorecard. Ultimately, you’ll need a good plan regarding who you need to hire, how many hires you need, and what the biggest challenges with regard to retention are. You can then become more specific in this objective by addressing those challenges.
54. Build high-performing teams: If teamwork is critical in your organization, consider this objective. It can be hard to measure, so you should think about whether you are encouraging teams or mandating teamwork.
55. Maintain alignment across the organization: Some companies demand an extensive amount of alignment across the organization, which can be seen through having common objectives or common incentive programs where alignment is important.
56. Develop leadership abilities and potential of the team: Many organizations realize that they are good at hiring people but not developing them into good leaders. If this is something your company wants to change, this objective is important.

If you have questions about which of these strategic objective examples may work for you, drop us a line. We’re happy to help.

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Looking for strategic objective examples to inspire your company’s success? ClearPoint Strategy provides the ultimate tools to define, track, and achieve your strategic objectives. Our comprehensive software simplifies the process of setting clear goals, monitoring progress, and ensuring alignment across your organization.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are strategic objectives?

Strategic objectives are specific, measurable goals that an organization sets to achieve its long-term vision and mission. They guide the direction of the organization and provide a clear roadmap for achieving desired outcomes, aligning resources and efforts toward common goals.

How do you write strategic objectives?

To write strategic objectives:

• Define the Vision and Mission: Ensure your objectives align with the organization's overall vision and mission.
• Use the SMART Criteria: Make objectives Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
• Involve Stakeholders: Engage key stakeholders in the process to ensure alignment and commitment.
• Prioritize Goals: Identify and prioritize the most critical objectives that will drive the organization forward.
• Draft Clear Statements: Write concise and clear statements that specify what is to be achieved and by when.

What are some examples of strategic objectives?

Examples of strategic objectives include:

• Increase Market Share: Achieve a 15% market share in the next two years by expanding into new regions.
• Enhance Customer Satisfaction: Improve customer satisfaction scores by 20% over the next 12 months through improved service delivery.
• Boost Revenue: Increase annual revenue by 25% within the next three years through new product launches and market expansion.
• Improve Operational Efficiency: Reduce operational costs by 10% within the next 18 months by streamlining processes.
• Develop Talent: Implement a comprehensive training program to increase employee skills and retention rates by 15% over the next year.

What are the benefits of using strategic objectives?

The benefits of using strategic objectives include:

• Clear Direction: Provides a clear and focused direction for the organization’s efforts.
• Alignment: Ensures all departments and employees are working toward the same goals.
• Resource Allocation: Helps in the effective allocation of resources to priority areas.
• Performance Measurement: Allows for tracking progress and measuring success against defined targets.
• Motivation and Engagement: Enhances employee motivation and engagement by providing clear goals to strive for.

How can strategic objectives be used to improve business performance?

Strategic objectives can improve business performance by:

• Guiding Decision-Making: Providing a framework for making informed and consistent decisions.
• Fostering Innovation: Encouraging innovative approaches to achieve objectives and stay competitive.
• Enhancing Accountability: Holding individuals and teams accountable for achieving specific goals.
• Driving Continuous Improvement: Promoting ongoing evaluation and refinement of strategies and processes.
• Aligning Efforts: Ensuring that all organizational efforts are aligned with long-term goals, leading to cohesive and efficient operations.