Mission Statement
From Entrepedia: The Entrepreneurship Wiki
Both Vision and Mission Statements are essential for undertaking any sort of longer term planning for a business. In order to successfully plan how to get there a business needs to state where it wants to go - in other words what its 'ideal future' looks like and an overall plan for achieving it.
Company Mission
A mission statement is defined as a business's guiding principles that state what the company's goals are, what their values are, and where they are headed. The mission statement defines the company's overall plan in a succinct and interesting manner with a tone reflective of the tone of the business itself. It should answer questions like: What needs does the business address?
- What is the purpose of the business?
- How does the business address those needs?
- What are the principles and beliefs that guide how the company addresses the need?
Making it Good
A good mission statement should reflect your core competencies and how you intend to apply them and sustain them. It should also be closely tied to the critical success factors in the marketplace – the things your venture has to be good at to survive. Make sure that you are able to use your mission statement to tell our employees, managers, suppliers and partners what contribution is required from them to deliver your promise of value to the customer.
Tips
One of the most common mistakes that a venture makes in developing their mission statement is letting the wrong attitude come through to the customer and potential investors:
- 95% of companies talk about "us" rather then "them" (the customer)
- "We are going to be the market leader by...."
There is a solution, however. Keep your mission statement flexible; it needs to be able to be emphasised/rephrased according to the audience. You can even have two different mission statements: one for your customers, and one for investors. Even better: you can have one shorter mantra for yourself and your team to help keep you on track.
