Mission and vision statements in strategic business planning

Business- Management

Strategic Management Process/Vision, Goals, Objectives

Criteria for Mission Statement

Expresses the core competency of the business

Include the organization's strengths, values, and purpose

State the organization's overall strategy for determining long-term success.

Explains why the organization exists

Explains what the organization is trying to accomplish

Criteria for Vision Statement

What the business wants to accomplish

Time from for accomplishing the goal

Inspires creativity

Energizes growth

Motivates employees

Strategic planning establishes where a company is going over the next year or so, how it's going to get there and how it will figure out if it got there or not. The focal point of a strategic plan is typically on the whole company. There are assortments of viewpoints, models and approaches that can be utilized in strategic planning. The manner that a strategic plan is developed depends on the nature of the company's leadership, culture of the company, difficulty of the company's environment, dimension of the company and know-how of planners. The first step in shaping a company's strategic plan is to establish the company's mission and vision statements (The Strategic Planning Process, 2010).

Conclusion

In order for a company to be successful they have to determine where they currently are, where they want to be and how they are going to get there. This is where good mission and vision statements can help a company. Writing these statements forces a company to take a good look at itself and put into writing what their plan is. It is this plan that guides management as well as employees to achieve the goals that they company has set.

Having a mission statement that expresses the core competency of the business will aid the company to really state what they are all about. The company should state its strengths, values, and purpose. These are all things that they should want people to know. The mission statement should also state the organization's overall strategy for determining long-term success. This is important for not only customers to know but stakeholders as well. The company also wants to stake why they are in business and what it is that they are trying to accomplish with being so.

A good vision statement for a company helps the organization to figure out what the biggest thing that they want to accomplish is and how long it is going to take them to do it. A company's vision statement should inspire creativity within the company so new products or processes can be explored. The statement should also serve to energize growth within the company and should work to motive employees to be dialed into where the company is going and what part they are going to play in getting it there.