SMART OBJECTIVES: What are they and how to apply them to your company

Defining SMART objectives (intelligent objectives) is essential in any business strategy to progress in the market.

Business objectives are necessary for any business strategy.Therefore, thinking and defining realistic objectives is an essential task within a company.

Many companies are not able to define and subsequently meet the objectives causing the inefficiency of these strategies.

Smart objectives can not only be applied to the business environment but we can also use them on a personal level.

What are the Smart objectives?

George t.Doran was the first person who referred to this term, in an article called “There’s a s.M.A.R.T.Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives ”published in 1981.

This model to set objectives establishes the indispensable guidelines and elements to implement effective objectives.Smart is an acronym that refers to each of the characteristics that we have to take into account.

Smart objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and temporary.Through them you can analyze the performance of the company's efforts.

The 5 elements that compose it are:

What is the Smart methodology for?

The Smart objectives have several functions and advantages within the planning of business goals.As a ultimate goal, they intend to optimize resources, staff and time.By raising specific and attainable goals, it facilitates the organization and achievement of the objectives.

Smart objectives must be easy to understand to serve as a guide, allow identifying the goals, organizing resources and finally knowing when an objective has been achieved.

Some of its advantages are:

1. Aumentar la visión empresarial: permite tener una visión amplia de tu negocio. A mayor visibilidad de los factores, mayor facilidad para alcanzar las metas.
2. Mejorar la planificación: pensar SMART es ordenar, planear, anticipar y verificar los avances. Este método permite establecer un orden en tu negocio (procesos, los sistemas, las actividades…).
3. Enfocar en lo importante: saber hacia dónde vas es fundamental para determinar qué tienes que hacer, cómo y con qué para llegar hasta ese punto. Establecer prioridades y jerarquizar de lo más importante a lo menos relevante.
4. Mayor control: mejor distribución de tus recursos humanos, físicos y financieros, lo cual te generará ahorro.
5. Optimizar la comunicación: ayuda a comunicar con precisión lo que pretende la empresa. Así, todos los integrantes identifican la meta y ayuda a la cohesión de los equipos.
6. Impulsar la gestión del tiempo: los objetivos SMART ayuda a delegar las actividades y a gestionar los tiempos en tu empresa.
7. Perfil estratégico: se trata de una metodología estratégica por lo que esto refuerza el posicionamiento de la empresa y su manera de trabajar.
8. Agilizar las fuerza de ventas: el equipo de ventas requiere visión y metas palpables para que puedan actuar de forma ágil. Gracias a los objetivos SMART, pueden guiarse y orientar sus esfuerzos alineados a tu estrategia comercial.
9. Establecer procesos de mejora continua: cuando tienes visión amplia de negocio, control de tus recursos, planeación y estrategia, es muy fácil establecer procesos de mejora continua.
10. Incrementar la rentabilidad: relacionado con lo anterior, si tu empresa es SMART lograrás resultados exitosos e incrementarás la rentabilidad de tu negocio.

Steps to create Smart goals in your company

Before entering deeply in each of the letters that make up the Smart objectives we leave you a video so that you give you an idea of what comes next.

Specific (specific)

In this first step, the more specific the better since it will be easier to get the goal.It is important to solve the questions of what, where and who.

Example: Increase sales of the product X of product by 20% for October 30, 2021 throughout the country.The responsibility corresponds to the Management of the Department of Marketing.

Measurable (measurable)

It is necessary to be able to quantify the objective to know whether or not to be achieved.We have to incorporate numerical meters, as percentages, to ensure compliance.This step implies monitoring.

When writing the objective we must ask ourselves these questions:

Example: Increase sales of the product X of product by 20% for October 30, 2021 throughout the country.The responsibility corresponds to the Management of the Department of Marketing.

In this example, the data that we will consider to check if we are achieving the objective is "20% for October 30, 2021".

Achievable (attainable)

It is very important when setting objectives that these are realistic and that can be achieved.

An attainable objective must answer the questions:

A prior analysis of what the company has done and achieved so far is necessary, to know if this objective is possible is if it must be adapted to the real situation.

At this point it is important to specify through what action or actions this objective is intended.

Example: Increase visits to the company's website.000 to 10.000 through the Christmas advertising campaign.Deadline December 31, 2021.

Relief (relevant)

A relevant goal must be in line with the general objectives of the business.All additional objectives to generals have to support and help the achievement of the latter.

Some questions to define relevant objectives:

Example: Increase the equipment of sellers from 5 to 10 before October 30 in order to increase sales throughout the community of Madrid by 50%.

Timely (temporary)

It is one of the most important factors, since they determine whether or not to meet an objective.Smart objectives are temporary, which means that they are limited to a certain time.

All the aforementioned characteristics, measurability, scope and relevance depend on the time in which they must be completed.This time can cause an objective not to be attainable and make it difficult to measure.

To formulate a smart objective we must:

Example: Increase visits to the company's website.000 to 10.000 through the Christmas advertising campaign.Deadline December 31, 2021.

SMART OBJECTIVES EXAMPLES

Let's remember the 5 variables:

«Increase visits from our website by 50% (1.000 to 1.500) In the next 30 days, by doubling content distribution and in order to prepare for the launch of our new product ».

Carry out a Keywords search:

«Growing the marketing equipment by 10% (from 100 to 110 employees) by the end of next year, hiring 3 employees every 3 months to complete the content creation equipment».

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