GoodnightEntrepreneur

StrategyTuesday #24: Mission Statement

A mission statement is a brief statement of purpose and priorities. A business’ mission statement, as per yesterday’s post, is very important to make sure that everyone in the business is working towards a common goal.

Herewith are mission statements of well-known companies:

Walt Disney -”To make people happy.”

Google - “To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Microsoft – “To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realise their full potential”.

Virgin Atlantic – “To grow a profitable airline, where people love to fly and where people love to work”.

In formulating a mission statement for your business you have to answer three important questions, namely

• what is your business,
• what will it be (in the future) and
• what should it be?

But to answer these questions you have to look at the reality of your customer and their point of view. The “wants” of your customers that are being satisfied by your service/product will define you business’ mission. [Drucker]

Drucker argues that for a successful mission you need to understand:

• Who your customer is?
• Where your customer is?
• What your customer really buys from you? Or put differently, by buying your service what “want” of the customer is being satisfied?