Difference between the mission and vision statement.strategic management - Essay Example

?DQ1 The main difference between the mission and vision ment is that the mission ment provides a guidelines of what the company seeks to achieve in the present as an organization while the vision statement illustrates the goals of the firm for the future. A company I once work for had the most deceptive and fraudulent mission statement I had ever seen. The company claimed that one of its values was taking care of the employees in order to improve their quality of life and of their families. The reason that the company lied in this statement was because this company was very abusive towards its employees. The firm would steal hours from the workers payroll by paying them fewer hours than they worked, they would pay the workers two to three weeks late every pay cycle, and the firm did not honor a bonus system that offered to the employees when they started to work for the firm. The actions of the managers, administrative team, and owners of the company were opposite of what the mission statement claimed. DQ2 I went to the corporate website of the global coffeehouse company Starbucks Cafe. The company has a corporate responsibility program in place that affected various aspects of their operations. One of the most intriguing aspects of the firm’s CSR plan was the sourcing of materials initiatives. The company in order to help our poor communities across the world only purchases fair trade coffee. Fair trade coffee is a system that guarantees poor farmers across the world a minimum price for coffee of $1.26 per pound which is twice the going rate for wholesale coffee across the world. Another aspect of the firm social responsibility commitment which I liked was their emphasis on hiring a diverse workforce. The firm also had good initiatives in place to protect the environment such as a recycling program. One aspect of their social responsibility initiatives that I did not like was the fact that the company does not have a mechanism in place to collect money for philanthropy causes. Considering the high profit margins the company enjoys the firm could easily donate 1% of their revenues or more to help fight hunger in places such as Africa, India, and South America. DQ3 The four major components of the strategic management process are environmental scanning, strategy formation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation. Environmental scanning is important because it allows the manager the opportunity to collect sufficient information in order to determine the relation between the company, the market, and its potential alternative solutions. I believe that the second step (strategy formation) is the most important step or component in the strategic management process. If a manager chooses the wrong strategy the subsequent steps won’t matter because the failure of the strategic initiative is inevitable. Take for example a company that decides after two years in business that the best strategic formation is too expand the company. The firm invests all the money it has on expanding without proper environmental scanning and without analyzing the financial consequences of the decision. Due to the bad plan the company realizes that now they are producing more goods than what the market seeks. Suddenly a firm that was doing well goes into financial troubles due to a bad strategic formation. 4. I agree with you that the mission statements of companies have a more detail description than the vision statement of a company. Based on the research that I made on the subject the reason that this occurs is because of the timeline perspective. The mission statement attempts to provide the people who read it an overview of the business as it is in the short term. People want to know what the company is all about and is seeking to do and realize. The visions statement is different because the vision statement provides an overview of what the company is seeking to achieve in the future. 5. I agree with a lot of the points you mentioned in your response. I believe that a people’s strategy is strategic due to the simple fact that employees represent the human capital of the company. Human capital is the most valuable asset a company has. The reason that company such as Microsoft have stayed on top of the game for so many years is because they recruit the most talented employees available in the marketplace. When a company does not think strategically in terms of human resources they begin to lose an edge in comparison with the competition. 6. I agree with you that a great plan is needed in business in order to achieve success. When Microsoft started out they were a very small company that nobody knew about. Its founder Bill Gates had the vision and a long strategic plan for the company that has allowed the firm to stay on top of the software industry for decades. The company became so powerful that it was accused of being a monopoly. Despite some of its legal troubles associated with anti-trust laws the firm has redefined itself by create a strategic plan to diversify into other sectors. The Xbox and Xbox 360 were both a huge success. 7. In your response you mentioned the components of SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis is a very useful tool to analyze the internal and external environments of an enterprise. A few years ago I performed a SWOT analysis to evaluate a potential investment opportunity in the stock market. The stock symbol is PPY which stands for Papyrus Australia. The stock was and still is a penny stock. The company invented a new paper made out of banana trees. The paper would revolutionize the paper industry because banana trees are a renewable source. Despite the innovation the company display the SWOT analyzes I perform made me realize that the stock from an investor point of view was not a good selection because the company was years away from commercialization. 8. I believe that functional tactics are very useful to improve the day to day operation of an enterprise. Managers have to be always on the lookout for process improvements and business opportunities. For example the fast food company Subway had the foresight of adding to its menus pizzas in order to increase its sales. Due to the high variety of ingredients Subway offers in its sandwich selection they can offer great customized supreme pizzas to its customers. The type of strategic thinking and innovation that Subway used should be imitated by other companies in different industries. Weekly Summary The first week of the course help me understand the importance of ethics and corporate social responsibility in the business world. It has become more important than ever for companies to support social causes due to the changes in the expectations of the customers and other important stakeholder groups. I took the practice test this week for the final exam. The test was very long and it covered all the branches of business administration. The individual paper this week helped me remember how important ethics has been throughout my MBA program. Ethics is an important variable that is needed to achieve business success. Looking forward towards week six the company I selected for the final paper is Barnes and Nobles. Weekly Summary II A people’s strategy is strategic because the employees represent the most valuable asset a company has. Great corporations such as General Electric and Microsoft have on top of their industries for decades mainly due to the fact that these companies have better human assets than the competition. Investing in developing your human resources can provide great benefits for corporations in the long run. When companies approve large downsizing initiatives in order to reduce cost firms are losing valuable human capital in which they invested thousands sometimes millions of dollars to develop their skills and capabilities. A people’s strategy can help companies achieve higher levels of employee retention. It can also motivate employees to perform at higher levels of productivity. Managers must value the efforts of the employees since they depend on the workers to achieve the productivity needed to generate revenues. Read More