Guiding A Company To Achieve Future Success

The mission, vision and values of a company are important to determine the strategic direction for the company’s future business operations. The mission is a guide and reminder to the shareholders and stakeholders of the company’s goals and objectives. The vision is the optimistic views and goals of what the company plans to become in the future. The values of the company are the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and views that will help the company to accomplish their mission and vision. Culture, social responsibility, and ethics are very important factors in influencing the company’s values. Customer needs are an important factor for a business to evaluate and implement into strategic business decisions. Companies need to create a competitive advantage over other companies for their products and services to compete in the markets. Companies should define, analyze, and evaluate each of these major factors to define the strategic direction the company wants to move in. Each factor will represent new goals and achievements for a company to pursue along their journey of making their vision come true.

The statement will be a constant reminder to the employees of the company that they are working to obtain the goals of the clients and not their own personal agendas. The mission of the company sets the strategic direction the company wants to follow. Clients are what make the business successful and catering to their needs is the way to retain loyal clients. Retaining loyal customers is cheaper than trying to attract new customers. Advertising by word of mouth is more effective and less expensive than expensive advertising campaigns through the media outlets. Customer satisfaction will promote the company in a positive light and attract new clients. The mission statement makes it clear to the shareholders and stakeholders the companies objectives and goals and the path that needs to be followed to accomplish these objectives and goals.

The vision will inform the customers where the management believes the company will be in the future. This is a tall order and work needs to be done to ever reach this goal. The best way for a company to reach such a lofty goal is to set a bunch of short-term goals that will lead up to the vision. By setting smaller goals the company will not become overwhelmed by the pressure of the obtaining the main goal. The vision will represent the strategic direction the company wants to operate in the future. Achieving short-term goals and objectives will make the plan possible. The vision gives the employees a target to reach for and to understand the direction the company wants to operate the business. The vision should motivate employees and customers to remain loyal because the benefits of accomplishing such a task will be rewarding. For the company to realize the vision they will have to be successful for many years and that will create longevity in employment, returns on investment, and financial success. The shareholders and stakeholders will both benefit from the success.

The values of a company should include honesty, integrity, loyalty, ethical behavior, and goal oriented motivation. The values need to be practiced from the top management to the lowest employee. Managers must act and behave in accordance of the values to show each employee the importance of the values. Employees who do not believe in the values and refuse to demonstrate their understanding of them need to be dismissed. Everyone who works at the company will have to make decisions and implement strategies using the values as the foundation of his or her ideas. A code of ethics is an important part of creating values for a company. Having a code of ethics visible for employees to read and learn will eliminate any excuses for not following the company’s values. Reputation to a firm can take a long time and become very expensive to fix if there is negative news regarding the company. Practicing the values in every decision or implemented strategy will help the company to achieve goals and move in the right direction to complete goals and company objectives.

The mission, vision and values of the company are important factors to achieving the strategic direction of the company. The mission indicates how the company will achieve their goals. Making the customers part of the mission reminds the company who they are achieving goals for. The mission serves as intermediate goals for the employees to follow and achieve the main goal that is the vision. The vision is the idea of the company and its operations in the future. The only way to make the vision possible is to complete the goals and objectives efficiently as possible. The values will serve as the foundation of the business and become the driving force behind strategic planning and management. Demonstrating the values to the employees and enforcing the policies behind the values will have everyone working in the same direction. The company needs everyone working in the same direction to make the mission and vision relevant.