Strategic management (Visionmission Statment) - Essay Example

"A mission statement has long been argued to lead to better performance by aiding strategy formulation and implementation. Empirical evidence to support this argument is however lacking in the literature. This has led to a considerable waning of managerial confidence in mission statements in recent years" (Sidhu 2003). Mission statements are exactly what they sound like: missions that tell what a company is doing. When companies carefully define what they are doing and how they are going to get there, they simply perform better than other companies that compete within their industry.

Also essential to success is the development of a company's vision statement, upon which the company's mission statement is based. The vision simply entails what a company wishes to become in the future. An example of a vision could include a new online dollar store wishing to take over a certain percentage of the market share in its industry (Heathfield 2007). According to Heathfield, "A vision is a statement about what your organization wants to become. It should resonate with all members of the organization and help them feel proud, excited, and part of something much bigger than themselves.

A vision should stretch the organization's capabilities and image of itself. It gives shape and direction to the organization's future. Visions range in length from a couple of words to several pages. I recommend shorter vision statements because people will tend to remember their shorter organizational vision" (2007).Heathfield offers two examples of vision statements in her article on the topic. The first one is from Westin Hotels and states, "Year after year, Westin and its people will be regarded as the best and most sought after hotel and resort management group in North America.

" The second is from the HR Association of Greater Detroit and States, "To be recognized and respected as one of the premier associations of HR Professionals" (2007).The Piercy and Morgan Models According to Piercy and Morgan, all mission statements should reflect four key concepts. The first is organizational philosophy and refers to what a company's management desires the company to accomplish and represent. The second is product market domain, which details where and how the company will operate.

The third is organizational key values, which define the behavior and skills of company employees and representatives. The last is critical success factors, which define what strengths a company must possess in order to be successful in their particular industry (Piercy and Morgan 1994). Using the aforementioned concepts, Piercy and Morgan developed four models that assist in formulation of a company's mission statement. Each of these models has its own advantages and disadvantages. The different types of mission statements that they defined were global mission, organizational mission, market mission, and no mission (Piercy and Morgan 1994).

Each type of mission statement is different in at least one key way. Global missions take both internal and external factors into mind and is all-encompassing of the concepts on which the four models are based. "An organizational mission' is one that emphasizes internal values only, such as organizational beliefs and philosophy. A 'market mission' is one which focuses on the definition of the market and critical success factors in the market place. A statement that does not define internal