Zappos Manktelow (2014) Defines the Vision Statement

Zappos Manktelow (2014) defines the vision statement as stating the organization's purpose, from the context of human values, as opposed to things like bottom line measures. The vision statement should include the values that the company holds as integral to its operations. An exception would be if there is a separate values statement, but even with that the company's vision of the world should naturally incorporate its values. Vision statements combine with mission statements to provide clarity of purpose for organizations.

The vision statement in particular should resonate with external stakeholders, who otherwise might not be particularly concerned with the mission statement. If the human values that the organization has are distilled into a singular vision of the company's future or how it will affect the world going forward, then that is something that should be expressed in the vision statement (Mantkelow, 2014). Zappos is the online shoe and clothing company.

The company's founder, Tony Hsieh, has outlined the vision of the company as follows: "Delivering happiness to customers, employees and vendors" (Hsieh, 2009). In order to analyze this vision statement against the ideal vision statement, we simply need to look at the different elements of an ideal vision statement. This vision is not all that visionary, for starters. The vision is very simple, and does not embody anything bigger than the everyday transactions that the company undertakes. This is not necessarily negative, because it does accurately reflect what Zappos does.

However, it is also not something that will ever inspire anybody. The human values of the organization are on display. This is a simple company with a simple plan. Zappos actually outlines a number of its values on its website, and this vision fits nicely in with those (Zappos, 2014). So the Zappos vision statement at least expresses some human values -- the happiness of consumption, anyway.

The term happiness is fairly vague, though when you make someone smile you certainly know it, so it does provide at least some sense of direction. What Zappos does to make people happy besides completing transactions for shoes and clothing is perhaps less certain, and probably should be defined. The other element of the vision statement is that it should have relevance to the external shareholder. This is where the Zappos vision statement is a little bit weak.

It talks about external shareholders -- the vendors and the customers -- but in a manner that reflects an internal perspective. This is not fitting for a vision statement. This is closer to what you might find in a mission statement -- we aim to succeed by meeting the needs of both our vendors and our customers. As a vision statement, this does not relate to external stakeholders, as they already expect that their needs will be met as part of doing business with Zappos.

The biggest flaw in the Zappos vision statement, however, is the lack of vision. Without getting into details, the current vision statement simply restates what the company does on a daily basis. It is a transaction mechanism bringing together buyers and sellers. So this is already known by all stakeholders.