This paper examines the mission statement, vision statement, values, and goals of Kraft Foods Group to demonstrate how these components reflect and communicate the company's broader competitive strategy. Drawing on strategic management frameworks, the paper evaluates the specificity and effectiveness of each element, noting that while Kraft's mission statement is relatively generic, its vision statement and goals are substantive indicators of a strategy centered on innovation, brand building, and financial growth. The paper also considers how these components align with the interests of key stakeholders—customers, partners, employees, and upper management—and concludes with a recommendation for strengthening the mission statement.
The paper demonstrates the technique of evaluative analysis using external criteria. Rather than accepting corporate statements at face value, the author applies published standards for what a mission or vision statement should accomplish — such as specificity, forward orientation, and employee guidance — and measures Kraft's actual statements against those standards. This approach models critical thinking in business analysis.
The paper opens with a framing introduction that establishes strategic management as the analytical lens. It then moves sequentially through mission, values, vision, and goals — each section pairing a direct quotation from Kraft with evaluative commentary. A synthesis section on stakeholder alignment follows, succeeded by a brief recommendations section and a concise conclusion. This component-by-component structure is well suited to strategic management coursework at the undergraduate level.
It is exceedingly important for organizations within today's climate of rapid-fire technology and constantly changing marketplaces to adhere to strategy. Due to the fast pace of both of these factors, many competitive organizations have tended to assume they can remain competitive only by refining operational processes — cutting costs and accelerating time to market (Hammonds, 2001). Nonetheless, an evaluation of one of the most successful enterprises within the food and beverage industry, Kraft Foods Group, reveals that adherence to strategic positioning is a critical prerequisite for both short-term and long-term success. Kraft reinforces this notion by expressing its strategy through some of its most prominent company markers — namely its mission statement, vision statement, values, and goals. An analysis of each of these components helps to shed considerable insight not only on the success of Kraft Foods Group as a whole, but also on the continuing relevance of strategy within today's business climate.
The mission statement for Kraft Foods Group is somewhat twofold. On the one hand, the company declares, "We are on a mission to be the best food and beverage company in North America." On the other hand, the company also declares that its mission is to make Kraft "the best investment in our industry." All things considered, both of these mission statements are fairly routine and reveal very little about the advantageous strategy this company has employed to consistently remain one of the top purveyors of food and beverages throughout North America and the world at large.
In fact, these mission statements are strikingly generic. Welch and Welch (2008) have observed that "the terms mission and values… have largely developed into fathead jargon. Almost no one can figure out what they mean… they… gussy up a vague package deal along the lines of: 'Our mission is to be the best fill-in-the-blank company in our industry.'" It is thus apparent that Kraft Foods Group's mission statement lacks the specificity and detail that characterize credible examples of this type of corporate literature.
Once this point is acknowledged, however, certain aspects of the mission statement do attest to the type of strategy Kraft employs. The second mission statement — in which the company aspires to be the best investment within its industry — is somewhat more specific and alludes to the detail found in its vision statement. It not only identifies the company's industry but also frames the organization as a superlative investment, which gives employees something to strive toward — one of the functions a good mission statement should serve. Nevertheless, these statements should be considerably more detailed, and ideally should be directly indicative of the company's strategy. Kraft succeeds in providing that detail elsewhere.
In much the same way that vision and mission statements provide information about a company and its strategy, a company's values serve a specific purpose: they represent a set of principles describing how employees should behave in order to achieve the mission. Although Kraft's mission statement does little to convey its strategy, its values are more detailed and more instructive about expected employee conduct. The company's values are captured in the following statement: "We will treat all employees with the respect they deserve. We will provide them with a safe workplace. And we will inspire them to do great things. Because we know that, every day, our success depends on the 23,000 talented, dedicated, diverse people of Kraft."
The values implicit in this statement — talent, dedication, diversity, and inspiration — are well aligned with aspects of Kraft's broader strategy. Inspiration, in particular, is a key strategic value; an organization focused solely on cost reduction and speed to market would have little need for it. Inspiration implies creativity and innovation, qualities characteristic of organizations that pursue a defined competitive strategy. Talent reinforces this point: together, inspiration and talent suggest that part of Kraft's strategy is to innovate on the basis of human capability. Dedication, meanwhile, contributes to the culture of innovation that Kraft seeks to foster, helping to distinguish it from competitors and sustain its strategic momentum.
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Kraft Foods Group. (2012). Investor relations: Long-term goals. Kraft Foods Group.
Welch, J., & Welch, S. (2008). State your business. Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Retrieved from
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