Question

Imagine you have an idea for a new business and you’re excited to start planning the next steps.

Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:

• What key elements will you include in your Mission and Vision statements?
• Why are these elements relevant to you and to your business?
• How will your mission and vision statements guide your business development and ultimately how you service your customers?

Answer 1

Have you ever been involved in an organization or business that never seems to accomplish very much? Regardless of how hard you work, you just go in circles. The problem may be that you have not decided where you want to go and have not created a roadmap of how to get there. From the perspective of an organization, the problem may be that you are not focusing on what you want to achieve and how you will achieve it. Below are a series of steps or statements of how to give your organization direction.

The first is a statement of vision. It provides a destination for the organization. Next is a statement of mission. This is a guiding light of how to get to the destination. These are critical statements for the organization and the individuals who run the organization.

• Vision – Big picture of what you want to achieve.
• Mission – General statement of how you will achieve the vision.

A companion statement often created with the vision and mission is a statement of core values.

• Core Values – How you will behave during the process.

Once you have identified what your organization wants to achieve (vision) and generally how the vision will be achieved (mission), the next step is to develop a series of statements specifying how the mission will be utilized to achieve the vision:

• Strategies – Strategies are one or more ways to use the mission statement in order to achieve the vision statement. Although an organization will have just one vision statement and one mission statement, it may have several strategies.
• Goals – These are general statements of what needs to be accomplished to implement a strategy.
• Objectives – Objectives provide specific milestones with a specific timeline for achieving a goal.
• Action Plans – These are specific implementation plans of how you will achieve an objective.

A more in-depth discussion of these statements is presented below. Statements for an example business are provided for clarification.

Vision Statement – A mental picture of what you want to accomplish or achieve. For example, your vision may be a successful winery business or an economically active community.

Vision of an Example Business – A successful family dairy business.

Mission Statement – A general statement of how the vision will be achieved. The mission statement is an action statement that usually begins with the word "to".

Mission of an Example Business – To provide unique and high quality dairy products to local consumers.