Organizational Strategy
Corporate Vision and Mission Statements
Vision and Mission Statements are among the most widely used tools in all businesses, and consistently rank above average in satisfaction. Elements of Mission and Vision Statements are often combined to provide a statement of your company’s purposes, goals and values.
What are Vision and Mission Statements?
- A Vision Statement describes the desired future position of your company.
- A Mission Statement defines your company’s business, objectives and approach to achieve those objectives.
3 Questions We Ask Before Coming Up With Your Vision and Mission Statement:
- What is your business
- What are you trying to accomplish on behalf of your customers?
- What is your company’s main reason for existence?
Why Come Up With a Vision and Mission Statement
Developing a vision and mission statement for your company is crucial to the success of your initiatives. These statements illuminate the aspirations of your business in a concise manner, and helps your organization to focus on what’s really important, while providing a basis for developing other aspects of your strategic plan.
As a smart business owner, you should use these statements to remind your people why your company exists because this is what makes your company successful. The vision is about a preferred future. Where will you be in 1 year? 3 years? 5 years? The mission tells us what we’re doing today that will then take us where we want to go in the future.
For example, Adrian is a client of ours who owns and operates a electronics business. The first time he contacted us, his office was his vehicle, and he frequently carried out operations while in motion.
Adrian used to spend about two days trying to beat the deadline for filing tax returns because he couldn’t locate his receipts. He hunted for them in his truck and in every room of his house, and usually had to make that dreadful call to his suppliers for copies. With a fast-growing business, he got frustrated every time such mishaps happened because they slowed down his progress.
Like many other business owners, Adrian hated putting on hold a number of income generating tasks just to deal with his accounting paperwork. Since we were his bookkeepers, we took care of his data entry processes; however, getting the much needed information became a nightmare.
When we suggested to Adrian that his business needs automation, he was thrilled!
After going through such a harrowing experience with accounting data entry, we explained to him how our accounting software works and he was ready to learn along the way. Most of the time, all he had to do was to take photos of various receipts and we would record the data in his business accounts including bank transactions.
It’s been a year since he started using our bookkeeping services, and now he has all the time he needs to manage his business.
What is the Criteria for Evaluating Your Vision and Mission Statement?
- Are the statements realistic?
- Do the statements identify your customers?
- Are the statements clear and easily understood?
- Do the statements fit the current market environment?
- Do the statements say what you want to be remembered for?
- Are the statements specific, short, sharply focused and memorable?
- Do the statements explain how your company will serve its customers?
- Are the statements based on our core competencies or company strength?
- Are the statements motivating and do they inspire employee commitment?
- Do the statements explain the customer needs your company is trying to satisfy?
- Are the statements focused on satisfying customer needs rather than the product?
