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Mission and Vision Statements

Overview

A mission statement defines the company's business, its objectives, and its approach to reach those objectives. A vision statement describes the desired future position of the company. Senior management of the company is responsible for writing the overall company's mission and vision statements. The objective of developing company mission and vision statements is to internally guide management's thinking on strategic issues, define performance standards, inspire employees to work more productively by providing focus and common goals, establish a framework for ethical behavior, and guide employee decision making. Outside the company, the mission and vision statements can create closer linkages and better connections with customers, suppliers, and alliance partners.

Inputs

This template can be added to your active workbook by clicking on Change and then selecting Mission and Vision. Click on Analysis Setup to open the menu options for this template.

Setup

A sample screenshot of the setup menu is shown below.

1	Analysis Type: Specify the template format for this analysis. This selection is not enabled since there is only one format available.
2	Num Rows: Specify the number of rows on the template. Currently, this option is fixed and not changeable.
3	View Example: Click on this button to add an example worksheet. You can use the example to understand how others have filled out the template or use the example as a starting point and modify it to better meet your needs.
4	Help Button: Click on this button to open the help file for this topic.
5	Cancel Button: Click on this button to cancel all changes to the settings and exit this dialog box.
6	OK Button: Click on this button to save all changes and compute the outputs for this analysis.

Click on OK to save the selected options.

The worksheet consists of three sections. One for Vision, one for the mission, and finally, one for values. On the left-hand side, below the title, there is a drop-down row that says, "Click here to view some examples." These have been provided to you from the best practices of other companies. Review them to get some inspiration as you develop your statements. If you are working with the management team, you can document the various statements created by different sub-teams, and then the finalized version that is agreeable to all management team members can be documented on the right.

Checklist

If you click on the Checklist button, you will see the following dialog box. The checklist contains a few pointers on things you need to pay particular attention to while performing this analysis. The checklist has been derived from experience working on past projects. Not all the checklist items need to apply to you. However, you should carefully review the checklist and apply any recommendations that make sense for your project. Make sure to read each checklist item and mark it as completed after you have read and taken actions as appropriate for your project.

Verify

If you click on the Verify button, the software will perform some checks on the data you have entered. A sample screenshot of the dialog box is shown in the figure below. The objective of this analysis as well as any checks that are performed is listed in this dialog box. For example, the software may check if you have correctly specified the input options and entered the required data on the worksheet. The results of the analysis checks are listed on the right. If the checks are passed, then they are shown as a green-colored checkmark. If the verification checks fail, then they are shown as a red-colored cross. If the verification checks result in a warning, they are shown in the orange color exclamation mark and finally, any checks that are required to be performed by the user are shown as blue info icons.

Outputs

Once you have answered all the data on the worksheet and click on Compute Outputs. This will only check if you have answered all the checklist questions in the input dialog box in the affirmative. A sample screenshot of the mission and vision statements is shown below. There are no specific outputs to interpret for this analysis. Once the mission and vision statements are finalized by your management team, you may want to create a good communication strategy around it and widely disseminate it through the organization.

Notes

Here are a few pointers regarding this analysis:

• You can add or change examples for each statement by opening the templates folder and editing the drop-down list that is currently being used so that the next time around, these statements will be displayed when you select the mission and vision statements.

Examples

Following examples can be found in the Examples folder.

1. Select a company and work with the management team to create or update the mission and vision statements (Mission 1.xlsm).

References

For more information on this topic, please refer to the following articles. Do note that if any external links are mentioned below, they are for reference purposes only.

• Mission and Vision Overview: http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/management-tools-mission-and-vision-statements.aspx

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