Business Objectives

Distinguish between aims, strategies and tatics:

AIMS	OBJECTIVES	TATICS
Aims: long term goals; generic	Strategies: the broad ways and means for achieving objectives (Big Manager makes these choices)	Tactics: day to day ways and meanings of achieving objectives (Small Manager makes these choices)
Something you aim for	The plan which you use to achieve the goal.	The strategy which to deploy the objective to achieve the goal

Distinguish between a mission statement and a vision statement:

Mission Statement	Vision Statement
Present	Futuristic
Measurable Criteria	Unmeasurable
Often simple	Abstract, lofty, complex
States why they exist	States where they want to be, organization's purpose and values
May change, but still uses cores and values, along with customer needs and vision	Should remain intact even if market changes dramatically, specifies on what organization represents

Explain the importance of objectives in managing your organization (4)

Within a business, objectives and ideas will naturally surface upon a business. These objectives are essential to a company’s success in various ways. Initially, it gives purpose and unity which guides the company in a certain direction. This allows the formation of foundation in business decision making, whether it’d be basic outline plans or strategic schemes, it allows them to shape their fundamental principles in order to achieve their goals. They also not only help encourage strategic thinking, specifically organizing and developing for the longer term, but also provide a certain range of measurement or management for the business itself. 

Within Cold Stones’ objectives, they are determined to be the top producer and seller of super-premium ice cream. This is an example of where the objective plays a role in stating purpose and guidance in terms of the company’s business direction. Due to their determination of being the leading, most finest ice cream producer, they are directing significant efforts of increasing general consumer awareness of the brand and experience Cold Stones Creamery is offering. Naturally, with this in mind, Cold Stones’ created a strategic method that was more oriented towards selecting employees and franchisees of the highest caliber to develop their business. Through their objectives, Cold Stones has flourished within the market over the years and is continuing to develop internationally.

Analyze the role of your company’s mission or vision statement (7)

The mission statement of Cold Stones is: “We foster a work environment through collaboration and partnerships that increase employee engagement, strengthen our business relationships, encourage innovation, influence multicultural markets and make Cold Stone the Ultimate Ice Cream Experience® for everybody!” 

A mission statement has the role of providing a clear purpose and reason of existence, with general terms of what they are trying to achieve along with their values. Within the mission statement that Cold Stones provide in their company’s website, it is evident that they are specifically directing their mission statement to employees. They not only value the work environment the employees of Cold Stones work in, but also are focused to achieve collaboration in terms of the workforce and business partnerships, yet ultimately exist to make a productive impact on the business market, specifically with ice cream as their main product. Since Cold Stones’ mission statement was directed and focused on the employees and their work environment, they definitely engage the employees to not only motivate them but to communicate the importance of their contribution, which can be an advantage to their mission.

With reference to your company, discuss the relationship between aims, strategic objectives and operational objectives. (9)

Aims, strategic objectives and operational objectives all interrelate, however they all have a combination of different elements that define them. Aims are often the organization’s goals, being the statement of purpose that directs where the business wishes to go in the future. In the case of Cold Stones, their aims are very broad, mainly surrounding the goal of providing ice cream lovers the ultimate customer experience. Whereas, objectives, both strategic and operational, are focused on the plan or the method that allows the business to achieve those aims. However, what makes strategic objectives different from operational is that they are usually long term goals that set the benchmark of success, which is designed to be measurable for the company. For example, two of the many strategic objectives Cold Stones had for their business is “In year 2000, they are determined to be number on producer and seller of super-premium ice cream”, and “By December 31, 2004, Cold Stones Creamery would want to have 1000 profitable stores operating”. The strategic elements of their objectives is seen through their “1000 profitable stores” which can surely by measured, and the time they have set to measure their success, “December 31, 2004”. On the other hand, operational objectives are mostly focused on daily, weekly, monthly measurable benchmarks that implement larger strategic objectives, also known as tactics. Tactics not only provide the means of management, but also allows employees to break down a larger strategy into a workable task while the focus is much narrower. In terms of Cold Stones, their tactics range from protecting current intellectual property, expanding portfolio, creating campaigns to pursue, protect, enforce trademark rights, and finally to revise and update logos, signage, as well as store appearance for promoting and modernizing Cold Stones as a whole. These tactics are all based on the basic aims of Cold Stones, what their main goal and purpose of their business is. Therefore, it is evident that aims, strategic and operational objectives all correlate. It is only from aims where you can branch out to strategic objectives and operational objectives, whether it would be surfacing a plan or to achieve those aims, or measuring the success based on the criteria of aims, they are essentially linked together to build success for a company.