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Survival

This is the most basic business objective. Every business must make enough of a profit to keep operating or else it will fold. Many new businesses will have this as an objective in their first few years. Some small businesses will continue to have this objective as they struggle against economic recession or face fierce competition.

Profit

The profit objective is easy to measure and is achieved when you have more income than costs. Most private sector businesses have this as their main objective.

Profit maximisation is a variation of the profit objective. This is when an organisation aims to make as much profit as possible. They do this by finding the right balance between their selling price, sales volume, and the costs of production.

Provision of a service

This objective is about focusing on providing a service to customers. For example in 2015 Transport Scotland re-established the passenger railway services from Edinburgh to Tweedbank providing a service to connect the Borders with Scotland’s capital city.

An example of a bigger service provision is NHS Scotland which provides free health care to patients at the point of entry.

Social responsibility

This objective is concerned with the business’s activities not causing damage to the environment or people. For example, some businesses use biodegradable packaging to reduce the harm it does to wildlife or the atmosphere.

However socially responsible products and services may cost more. This will result in either a smaller profit margin for the business or higher costs being passed on to the consumer.

Customer satisfaction

This objective aims to ensure customers are happy with the product and level of service offered by the business. One of the major aims of customer satisfaction is that customers will show loyalty and return to buy from the business in the future.

Customer satisfaction may be measured by surveys and interviews. Feedback from such market research will then be acted upon.

Market share

This objective, like profit, is easy to measure. Market share relates to the sales made in a particular market. To increase market share a businesses will aim to increase their sales or aim to become the number one business in that industry.

For example a number of discount supermarket chains have set out to attract more customers and increase their sales in the UK. Their objective is to increase their market share of the UK supermarket industry. This will obviously worry the more established supermarket businesses because their market share will shrink and their positions as market leaders will be challenged.

Enterprise

This objective is about taking the initiative to turn an idea into reality. To do this a business or entrepreneur will take the risk of bringing together the factors of production. Finance, production, market research and testing will all need to be organised before the product or service can be taken to market.