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Corporate Procedures – Defined
Corporate procedures are precise, pre-determined step-by-step methods for conducting routine tasks in an organization in an efficient manner.

Procedures are what operational and administrative staff use to accomplish their day-to-day work. Procedures are normally documented in detailed Procedures Manuals.

For example, most organizations would have an Administrative Procedures Manual that would detail everything about internal administrative practices; from how to fill out “request for vacation forms” to which font style and size to use in corporate letters written to customers.

On the other hand, Operational Manuals detail how operational staff are required to carry out their detailed tasks. In most organizations this would involve multiple manuals, or sets of manuals.

For example, a manufacturing company would likely have detailed procedures manuals for each product that they produce. They might even have a separate procedures manual for the operation of each piece of equipment.

Writing Tip:
Procedures manuals should be drafted by staff members who are working in a day-to-day hands-on fashion with the procedures being documented. Most large organizations actually develop a “standard” for the drafting of procedures to ensure that they use a uniform consistent approach to document all procedures.

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Corporate Objectives
Corporate objectives are statements of intent that provide the basic direction for the activities of an organization in pursuit of its mission.

In many organizations there is overlapping and confusion between the terms objectives and goals. This is easy to avoid if you think of objectives as statements of intent and goals as quantifiable targets. For more about goals and objectives, click here

Generally speaking, an objective is a broad statement of an intention to do and/or achieve something.

Following are some typical corporate objective statements:

“To design and manufacture our products in the most cost-efficient manner for timely distribution to our national network of suppliers.”

“To undertake a new and rigorous research and development program aimed at developing a new line of products geared toward the sports market.”

“To provide the highest level of service possible to our patients, physicians, and the that communities we serve.”

“To foster a challenging, rewarding and satisfying work environment for our employees.”

Here are the published corporate objectives of a major manufacturing company in the UK:

“To supply our customers with the highest quality products and provide outstanding levels of sales and delivery service, incapable of being matched by our competitors, and thereby increasing our market share.”

“To undertake this challenging task with the objective of delivering superior rates of return to our shareholders and providing opportunities and reward for our employees.”

Writing Tips:
1.  When formulating corporate objectives statements always think in terms of “What are the key things that we need to do to achieve our mission on an ongoing basis?

2.  Since corporate objectives are statements of “intent” most of them can begin with “to” in the sense of “It is our intent to….”.

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Corporate Goals – Defined
Corporate Goals are targets set by an organization as specific, quantifiable outcomes that it commits to attain in order to achieve its corporate mission and objectives.

Essentially, when an organization sets its specific goals it is saying; “We need to achieve these specific targets in order to successfully achieve the mission and objectives of this organization”. In fact, goals are the translation of the mission and objectives of the organization into specific quantifiable terms against which results can be measured.

Some examples of typical corporate goals follow:

“To produce and distribute to dealers at least 10,000 vehicles by year-end”.

“To organize and host an international conference on the subject of the role of human factors in aviation occurrences”.

“To develop and implement a new methodology for carbon emission trading in the international aviation industry”.

“To draft a proposed new international standard for the estimation of risk and to present that proposal to the Annual Conference of Statisticians in Paris, France in November”.

“To manage our financial portfolios so that they earn a minimum of 7% annual return for our investor clients.”


The above statements are true goal statements in the sense that they can be quantified in advance and their achievement (or non-achievement) can be specifically measured at the end of the period in question.

The targets set for each goal are what management believes is the minimum achievement necessary to accomplish the mission and objectives of the organization for the period under consideration (typically one year).

Writing Tips:
Goal statements should be short and succinct and must define a target that can be specifically measured at the end of the period.