Course Code and Title: CBME1 – Strategic Management

Lesson Number: 2

Topic: The Business Vision and Mission

Professor: Joselito G. Yu, LPT, MaEd

A Mission Statement defines the company's business, its objectives, and its approach

to reach those objectives. A Vision Statement describes the desired future position of
the company. Elements of Mission and Vision Statements are often combined to
provide a statement of the company's purposes, goals, and values.

On the other hand, most companies have both vision and mission statements. Just like
people, companies need a direction. A lack of direction has shuttered many businesses.
In addition to direction, just like people, businesses need to set and obtain goals while
knowing how to go about achieving them. At the same time, a company's employees
need a sense of cohesiveness to work together in harmony. These ideas are
encapsulated by the mission and vision statements, and this article helps to explain the
difference which is crucial for any business to understand.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:

1. Discuss the difference between mission and vision statements.

2. Obtain an idea:: What comes first mission or vision? and What’s the
importance of mission and vision.

3. Read the article by Mark W. Johnson entitled: “Do the U.S.’s Big Four
Tech Companies Have a Vision for the Future”.

Pre-assessment:

I. Multiple Choice: Pick out the letter of the correct answer and write the
letter on the space provided before each number.

_____ 1. What is the purpose of a vision statement?

a. To identify key employees.

b. To convey what you want to accomplish
c. To talk about why you started the business
 d. To develop a pricing strategy

_____ 2. How does a mission statement differ from a vision statement?

a. A mission statement talks about where you see yourself in five years.
b. A mission statement explains how and why you started a business.
c. None of the answers are correct; the terms mission and vision statements
can be used interchangeably.
d. A vision statement explains how and why you started a business...

_____ 3. How does a business aim relate to a vision statement?

a. Aims are incorporated into the mission statement.

b. Aims are measurable steps toward a vision.
c. Aims are incorporated in the vision statement.
d. Aims are the past achievements of your business.

_____ 4. It is an aspiring description of what you would like to achieve in the long-
term future.

a. Vision statement
b. Mission statement.
c. The business aims
d. Business objectives
_____ 5. It defines the company business, its objectives, and approval to reach the
vision (THE HOW).
a. Vision statement
b. Mission statement.
c. The business aims
d. Business objectives

Lesson :

The Difference Between Vision And Mission

Mission Statement

The mission statement of a company is a declaration of what they do every day. It

defines the day-to-day activities of their work and every person who works for the
organization contributes to that mission. Think of it as the person who sets daily or
weekly goals for themselves to accomplish. It describes to employees and customers
what is being done right now. It is present-focused and can change very quickly
depending on the circumstances of the business's market.

For a company's employees, it gives workers a sense of purpose about the value of
their work. It is a broad statement that describes the cohesiveness of an organization,
even if they do multiple and varied types of work in their departments. Many times
mission statements often start with statements such as, "We provide…" or "We offer…"
or "We are a…" The mission statements establish a framework for the behavior of those
working in the company. Performance standards can be based on a company's mission
statement and they can guide decision making for employees at various levels of the
company.

Vision Statement

A vision statement is a clear, definitive statement of what you want to accomplish, and
what the world will look like once you've accomplished your mission. Think of it as the
perfect scenario that you're working toward accomplishing. Also, knowing what is
important in the community you are working in is oftentimes extremely important in
crafting a vision statement. Unlike the mission statement, a vision statement is future-
oriented. It provides a sense of what the company values to those both inside the
company and out. At times, some companies will use their vision statement for public
relations purposes.

Since a vision statement is used to direct overall strategic goals for a company, they
tend not to change very often. Each goal is another step on the path toward achieving
the overall vision of the company. Vision statements are written in the present tense but
still serve the future of the enterprise. When a vision statement can be read in the
present tense and be accurate, an organization will know that their vision is being
achieved. For example, a vision statement for a nonprofit who works to eliminate
homelessness may read, "All children will live in safe, affordable housing." Therefore,
making sure children are in safe, appropriate housing is the overall strategic goal of that
non-profit.

Some assume mission and vision statements are the same. However, there is

a difference between mission statements and vision because each statement
describes different aspects of a company's identity and future. A mission statement
focuses on a company or organization's purpose. A mission statement focuses on an
objective relating to the business of the company or organization with strategies to
achieve it. A vision statement details the direction the company or organization is going
In a mission, the statement focuses on a shorter timespan for accomplishing short-
term goals. An aspect of the statement focuses on today or the present. In a mission,
the statement focuses on what employees need to know now, and the statement
focuses on today regarding actions they should be doing toward company purpose.
The statement focuses on the internal and external growth of the company.
The statement focuses on establishing good communication among employees,
customers, and company partners. The mission statement focuses on people the
company serves. The mission statement focuses on how to serve others with
motivation.

A thoughtfully created mission that focuses on today contributes to the growing aspect

of the world's information.  A mission that focuses on today understands how to
meet the needs of employees and those they serve. The focuses on today include
understanding trends, what people like, and meeting the unique needs of a changing
world. A mission that focuses on today understands culture and diversity.

The world's information is continually changing with focuses on tomorrow or what is

to come. A vision that focuses on tomorrow understands potential risks and why they
matter. Focuses on tomorrow include keeping business essential updated, such as
skills and tech advancements. A vision that focuses on tomorrow will describe what
the company will look like in 10 years. The world's transition relies on how companies
project their futures.

In a vision, the statement focuses on long-term company aspirations. A

vision statement focuses on tomorrow by creating a lasting visual image of where
the company should be. The statement focuses on dreams and hopes for the
company. The statement focuses on promoting growth for a better outcome.
The statement focuses on achieving purpose-driven long-term success.
The statement focuses on tomorrow by helping employees understand how their
actions direct the company's direction.
to fulfill its mission. The difference between mission statements and vision is that
vision acts as a road map part of a strategic plan helping the company to stay focused
on meeting its mission.

Together, mission and vision statements give a general statement about the values, goals,
and purpose of a company. Mission and vision statements tell why a company exists. As you
relate to the mission, the statement focuses on today. As you look ahead through the vision,
the statement focuses on tomorrow. Detailed mission and vision statements make it clear
what the company does and how it does it. When a company

defines a mission, the mission should answer who, what, how, and why these
elements are essential to the organization's mission.

What is a good vision statement?

Good vision statements are straight to the point while specifying where the company
wants to be. It is short and straightforward while being the starting point of an action
plan. It gives purpose to the company as an outline. Poorly written vision

statements are the opposite. Mission and vision statements go hand in hand while

one provides guidance and inspiration to the other. Vision statements lacking clear
direction may make it difficult to understand the difference between a vision statement
and a mission statement.

Vision statements make organizations unique and help with competitiveness.

Prominent company brands in different industries such as automotive, retail, and
multimedia have clear, defined vision statements that make them stand out. Consider
some of your favorite brands and learn about their vision statements. Think about
their products and services and how their vision statements play a role in defining
the brand and its core market.

Vision statements help challenge company employees to be creative problem solvers

while staying focused on achieving goals. It is the greater good that makes
the difference between a vision statement and company mission. Vision
statements answer questions about where a company sees itself years into the
future. Vision statements create a mental image of what a company hopes to achieve
moving forward. Incorporating the right actions and mindset into your everyday
life makes a difference in the company's vision. A good vision statement focuses on
helping employees understand their place in the company and what to contribute long
term.

What comes the first mission or vision?

Once a large or small business understands its purpose, it can develop its mission

and vision. Understanding why the company is in business helps develop its vision or
direction, visualizing its future. The mission helps vision statements materialize with an
approach. Mission and vision statements sometimes take time to develop, with some
companies making slight changes and tweaks to their mission vision values.

Vision values are related to vision statements. For businesses, a vision statement

focuses on defined core values and standards for employees. A vision statement
focuses on ethics to practice and the creation of business culture. These aspects are
the greater good to upholding mission and vision statements during times of
change.

What is the importance of mission and vision?

The mission and vision statements work together to keep a company or organization

focused on meeting goals they want to achieve. Mission and vision statements play a
 Do the U.S.’s Big Four Tech Companies Have a Vision for the Future?

by Mark W. Johnson

On July 29th*, the House Judiciary Committee’s year-long anti-trust investigation will
culminate with public questioning of Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg,
Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. The CEOs can expect to be grilled
about their companies’ alleged monopoly powers and unfair trade practices, but I
hope at least one member of the committee will press them on a different (but closely
related) set of issues: I want to hear these leaders explain their vision of what their
companies could become in the next decade — if they are not broken up — and why
Americans should care one way or the other about what happens to them.

By vision, I don’t mean a vision statement — the platitudinous promise to be “the best”
or the “biggest” or the “most innovative” company in their fields. All of them spend
millions of dollars on advertising, PR, and lobbying; I know what messages and
feelings they want their brands to convey. What I want to hear is how they think their
companies can change people's lives for the better in the years to come, as
concretely as possible. In the best possible future, why will people be glad these
companies exist?

significant role in strategic planning. Each component of mission and vision

statements ensure all parties involved in the effort are productive while encouraging
efficiency. They ensure people part of the initiative are aligned working toward the same
purpose while detailing performance standards and expectations.

Companies need to have mission and vision statements to define their purpose

while standing out against their competitors. A successful company contributes to
society. When it comes to mission, the mission of the company becomes part
of everyday life through practicing company values.  Vision and mission
statements written poorly may present challenges and setbacks to a company or
organization. In such situations, vision and mission statements lacking detailed
insight may experience problems attracting the right talent, developing an appropriate
work culture, and lack levels of productivity to achieve success. Understanding the
best mission vision components to develop mission and vision statements is
essential for any size company to achieve success and sustainability.

My interest in this goes way beyond idle curiosity. As a business strategist, I’ve spent
decades helping firms develop the long-term visions and plan they need to successfully
navigate disruption. But I’ve never looked into a future that is as potentially disruptive as
what is before us today. Thanks to the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic,
climate change, our hyper-polarized
politics, and our winner-take-all style of
capitalism, our system is facing its
greatest existential threat since the
1930s.

Until recently, most Americans believed

our free enterprise system was the most
efficient and productive in the world, and
that Facebook, Amazon, Google, and
Apple represented it at its best. Twenty years ago, Steve Jobs’ digital hub strategy,
based on his vision of the home computer and the emergence of mobile devices in the
next decade, transformed Apple from a niche computer-maker to the world’s most
valuable company of any kind, radically changing the way we work and play. Amazon
has used its scale to help small businesses reach millions of customers. Google
promised us that they wouldn’t be evil, and they brought a world of information to our
fingertips; Facebook proposed to bring the world closer together, and, in a lot of ways, it
has.

As they grew, most people believed, the whole economic pie expanded as well,
spreading opportunity far and wide. But in the last several years, all four companies
have lost a lot of that goodwill in the pursuit of sheer scale. Where Americans once
celebrated their unstoppable drive to create and build, now many see an unrelenting
march to total dominance, and even glimpses of dystopian, anti-competitive power.
Amazon controls a third of the cloud business, 44 percent of e-commerce, and a
staggering 70 percent of the smart-speaker market. Google controls over 90 percent of
the search. Facebook has become a conduit for political disinformation and Apple a
symbol of conspicuous consumption and ruthless brand protection. As tens of
thousands of small and not-so-small businesses face bankruptcy in the wake of the
pandemic, all four companies continue to thrive.

Will they be driven over the next 10 years by the relentless pursuit of profit, or will they
bring so much new value into the world in the form of advanced technologies, new
applications, lower prices, enhanced productivity, and expanded potential, that people
everywhere will count themselves as better off? Will they make a collective dent in our
society’s most pressing problems, or merely pursue growth for the sake of growth?
 Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook’s
combined valuations are around $5.5
trillion and their leaders are among the
richest people in the world. None of them
needs more money, but America
desperately needs all the resources,
talent, ingenuity, and cash they can
muster—provided that, in the words of
the Business Roundtable’s Statement on
the Purpose of a Corporation, they’re
harnessed to the task of serving not just their companies’ senior executives and
investors, but all of their stakeholders: their customers, workers, and suppliers, and the
countries and communities in which they work. No one can predict the future, but the
leaders of great companies can change it for the better by the choices they make and
the investments they pursue, both within their core businesses and with their more
venturesome moonshots. They can use their outsized resources to invent a world that is
more sustainable, more equitable, and healthier than the one we live in today. This isn’t
some pie-in-the-sky idea, it’s in their self-interest to do so. As corporations as diverse as
Siemens, Unilever, and Tencent have proved in recent years, the more purpose-driven
and socially responsible their aspirations, the more inspired their people, and hence the
greater the results they can deliver.

Growth is not just about scale; value is not only about dollars. There is much that
organizations can do to ensure a better future for generations to come, and they must
continually change, regenerate, and grow in capability and focus.
Whether their leaders are their entrepreneurial founders, like Bezos
and Zuckerberg, or professional managers, like Cook and Pichal,
they must adopt a longer view than their next quarterly earnings
statement — and set goals that are tangible enough to grab hold of
and bold enough to inspire. Jeff Bezos gave a speech a year or so
ago in which he shared his grand vision of space colonies housing
up to a trillion people. That’s not what we’re talking about. Imagine this: an Amazon that
uses its capabilities in technology and logistics to reduce want on the planet we live on
right now; an Apple that develops wearable medical technology that measurably
improves health outcomes; a Facebook that helps people bridge their differences rather
than provide them with cognitive and ideological bubbles; and a Google that lives up to
its

stated goal of democratizing the world’s knowledge. Can they turn those hazy
aspirations into actionable and achievable strategies?

The jury is still out on what Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google can become. Do
their leaders have the vision to imagine a better world for all of us, and the will and the
wherewithal to work from the future back to bring it into being? Or are they content to
merely push out from the present forward, opportunistically adding products and
services to protect their existing advantages? I hope their visions are big and bold and
achievable. Because whether they pursue them or someone else does, we could all use
a powerful dose of hope.

Mark W. Johnson is co-founder and senior partner of the strategy consulting firm Innosight and author

of Lead from the Future (HBR Press, 2020).

Generalization:
Module 2: The vision, mission, and values statements guide the behaviors of people in
the organization. But when the statements are not supported, people have no guidance.
If people in the firm were guided by the mission, they could have corrected even the
CEO. The Countrywide might have avoided disaster.

. A vision statement is a statement of an organization’s overarching aspirations of what

it hopes to achieve or to become. Here some examples of vision statements:

 Disney: To make people happy

 IKEA: To create a better everyday life for many people.
 British Broadcasting Company (BBC): To be the most creative organization
in the world.
 Avon: To be the company that best understands and satisfies the product,
service, and self-fulfillment needs of women- globally.
 Sony corporation: To be a company that inspires and fulfills your curiosity.

While Mission statement describes what the organization needs to do now to achieve
the vision. The vision and mission statements must support each other, but the mission
statement is more specific. It defines how the organization will be different from other
organizations in its industry. Here examples of mission statements from successful
businesses:

 Adidas: We strive to be the global leader in the sporting goods industry with
brands built on a passion for sports and a sporting lifestyle.
 Amazon: We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four
primary sets: consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators.
 Google: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible
and useful.
 Honest Tea: To create and promote great-tasting, truly healthy, organic
beverages.

Activity/Evaluation:

I. Multiple Choice: Pick out the letter of the correct answer and write the letter on
the space provided before each number.

__1. An organization needs to have a mission statement to:

a. inform stakeholders
b. allocate budget
c. ensure viability
d. set boundaries
__2. A mission statement contains an organization’s

a. deadlines and targets

b. diversity policy
c. identity and purpose
d. operational plan
__3. Who in an organization has responsibility for working towards the vision /mission
/goals?

a. Employees
b. Employer
c. Everyone who works for the organization
d. Suppliers
__4. When it comes to developing your organization’s mission + vision: choose one
from below:
 a. Your vision comes first and your mission comes second.
b. Your mission comes first, and your vision comes second.

__5. A mission statement focuses on today and what an organization does to achieve it.

a. False
b. True
__6. All staff needs to be aware of their organization’s mission/ vision/ goals.

a. False
b. True
__7. Why is it important to have an environmental business objective?

a. To adhere to government targets

b. To be competitive
c. To keep the customer base
d. To reduce staff turnover
__8. What is the purpose of organizational aims and objectives?

a. To provide direction to staff

b. To prevent takeovers
c. To give a brief overview of ideas
d. To set staff limits of authority
__9. A vision statement focuses on tomorrow and what an organization wants to
ultimately become.

a. True
b. False
__10. A mission statement doesn’t usually include:

a. What we do
b. What we serve
c. How we serve
d. Deadlines for when things will be done

II. Essay: Write your answers clearly and legibly. (10 points)
 1. How do you analyze the mission and vision of a company?

2. Why are mission and vision important in business?

Reinforcement:

Practice Questions and justify your answers:

1. Royal dutch shell is an oil company with the vision statement “to make a difference
through our people, a team of dedicated professionals, who value our customers,
deliver on our promises, and contribute to sustainable development.” Their mission is
much clearer about what they do: “To safely market and distribute energy and
petrochemical products while offering innovative value-added services,” Compared to
the mission, the vision is

a. a statement of purpose

b. a values statement

c. meant to inspire.

2. Well Fargo is a US national Bank. Their very long values statement includes: “We
want our customers to trust us as their financial resource—whether it’s giving them
sound guidance, helping them reach their financial goals, completing transactions
accurately and promptly, or providing them with products and services to meet their
needs.” In 2016 and 2017, investigators found extensive fraud where employees put
customers into unwanted accounts or charged unnecessary fees. What was missing at
Wells Fargo?

a. Clear communication of the meaning of the values.

b. A culture that reflected the organization’s stated goals.

c. Executive support of the values.

References:

https://www.slideshare.net/opaprb/the-business-vision-and-mission-8492262
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzhJNiQ3vMM

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-principlesofmanagement/chapter/reading-

mission-vision-and-values/