#TheStrategicProcess #Corporate Mission

The Mission statement is a short text that defines for the company the reason to be. The Mission must describe the fundamental purpose of the organisation and, particularly, that which gives or offers to customers. In the case of public sector or non-profit organisations will be what is offered to citizens and beneficiaries. 

According to Professor Fredmund Malik's book of Management ("Das A und O des Handwerks") the primary purpose of any institution, company or business is to convert resources (knowledge) in achievement, use or performance for customers. Thus, as Professor Malik considers, the three basic elements of a Business Mission or Corporate Mission must answer the following three questions:

1) What are the market needs? Or to put it in another way: Why and for what the customers pay us?

2) Where lies our superiority or supremacy? Or to put in another way: What we do better than others?

3) How our strength comes from? Or expressed in another way: What we believe?

Normally the Corporate Mission is defined by the Board of Directors interacting with the top management of the company.

Ultimately the Mission defines the business to which the company is engaged, the needs covered with its products and services, the market in which the activity is developed and the public image it wants to reflect as a company or organisation being all the answers to the question: why the company or the organisation exists?

Here are three more examples to illustrate this:

KPMG Enterprise Mission: "Transforming knowledge into value for the benefit of our customers, our people and the capital markets"

Ford Company Mission: "We are a global, diverse family with a proud, confident and passionate heritage to provide exceptional products and services."

Disney Company Mission: "We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages anywhere"

Do you know the Mission of your institution, company or business? Would you know how to define it? Personally I think it is a fundamental exercise that must be undertaken. Sometimes it is highly interesting to define also your personal Vision and Mission  to know oneself and to contribute more to the family, to our immediate environment, to our company and consequently to the whole society. In the end we are what we want to be.