"I decided the target for our firm IS TO BE TO provide better services."

Question

Suppose I wrote the following:

I decided the target for our firm is to be to provide better services.

Would this be correct?

Answer 1

It is grammatically acceptable; but it is gnarly to read.

There is a linguistic rule-of-thumb called horror aequi which states that people don't like to hear or read identical constructions too close together. The back-to-back to infinitives violate this rule; you would do better to express futurity with will:

I decided the target for our firm will be to provide better services.

In addition, target is not a good choice here. In business-speak, a target usually means a specific measurable goal to be achieved in a specific period, such as ‘$20M revenue in 2015’ or ‘Top 5 market share by Q3 2018’. ‘To provide better services’ might better be characterized as your firm’s ‘mission’ or perhaps ‘strategy’.

Answer 2

The correct form would be

I decided the target for our firm is to provide better services.

Drop the 'to be'

Answer 3

I decided the target for our firm is to be to provide better services.

Two ideas seem to have become conflated here. Compare:

1. Our firm is to provide better services.
2. Our target is to provide better services.

In [1], is the modal (Palmer 1999.164), semi-modal (Leech, 2204.104), modal idiom (Quirk et al, 1985.135) or quasi Modal (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002,113-4).