Academic empirical investigation of goal setting in the professional service context has been limited. Moutinho in 1988 a study of twenty-eight professional service firms discovered that most firms’ primary goals are set in terms of sales volume (fee income) and profitability. Following these criteria in order of use were firm image goals, return on investment, and market share. These results mirror my own practical experiences in PSFs where partnerships are willing to set broad targets for fee income and to a lesser extent partnership profitability but are less than happy to set associated marketing goals in terms of image, positioning and, especially, market share. The reluctance to use market share in goal setting is particularly noteworthy given the level of debate concerning the nature of the relationship between market share and profitability that has dominated the world of strategic marketing in the recent past.
Irrespective of the actual criteria upon which goals and objectives are set in professional service firm’s, marketing academics have proposed some prescriptive advice for practitioners. Kotler’s textbook prescription is typical of these. Kotler’s prescription is that objectives and goals should be:
Hierarchical: firms pursue multiple goals and objectives in most cases and therefore in order to provide focused effort in planning and implementation the firm’s goals should be explicit and prioritized.
Quantitative: most writers induce practitioners to set quantified, measurable goals whenever possible. I would add a note of caution to this in that this can lead to a tendency to focus only upon those things which can be easily measured. Remember that just because you can’t measure something it doesn’t mean that it’s not important!
Realistic: setting realistic target levels for goals is also seen to be important. Unrealistic targets can and do demotivate staff and lead to less effort towards achievement than if no target has been set at all. This can be particularly damaging if evaluation and reward are linked to targets.
Consistent: there has to be a recognition that there are trade-offs to be made between mutually exclusive objectives and goals such as short-term profit vs long-term growth, growth vs stability, etc.
A further note of caution should finally be recognized in terms of strategic and marketing goals and objectives. While prescriptions calling for hierarchies of objectives, and my own advice to actually set some quantifiable marketing goals, are valid I recently experienced a preliminary planning workshop in the regional office of a large national service organization in which executives, unused to planning, were presented with a list of ten ‘key’ objectives. Each of the objectives was described as ‘vital to the survival and prosperity of this organization’. Many of these were actually mutually exclusive or at least conflicting and left the planning group in reality ‘aimless’. These objectives should have been prioritized at least and preferably worked on individually by planning teams in a ‘chunking’ approach. Do not set many objectives, it will simply confuse your people and dissipate their efforts.
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