I would say that the sentence is not correct, and a corrected version would start with > "The miss _of the_ sales target..." or > "The miss _of our_ sales target... or > "The miss of _the department's_ sales target..." or similar. However, I think even the corrected version still sounds awkward and long-winded. Instead I would say > "We missed our sales target because..." or > "We missed our sales target. The miss was caused..." or > "The department missed its sales target because..." or perhaps even > "Our sales target miss was caused..." (That last one is a bit German in style, chaining three nouns in a row into a noun phrase -- I think it's acceptable in English, but I could imagine some people finding it confusing.)