Just attended one seminar last Sunday which was basically about how the companies should try to work towards business excellence. There one of the speakers talked at length about the importance of vision & mission of the company as to how the company’s character is communicated through its vision & mission and how people develop a certain attitude towards a company that has a clear vision of where it wants see itself certain years down the line and how it plans to reach there. But somehow I feel that these things don’t hold too much of importance in today’s world where everyone is looking for a best deal and not the best company to deal with! So I questioned the speaker about this but he got offended may be because I questioned the central theme of his lecture! So I left it at that.
But since then I have been thinking about it and the speaker whose mission, it seemed, was to convey the importance of vision to the audience! He kept on stressing on one thing i.e. the stakeholders. He held the view that the stakeholders would deal only with those companies whose vision & mission coincided with their belief and principles. Let’s consider a case of some company whose stakeholders would obviously be shareholders, employees, creditors, suppliers, government, society and customers. Now what percentage of these stakeholders would know the vision & mission of the company they are dealing with? Let’s take one by one.
Investors: Barring a few who actually do a thorough analysis of a company (whether it involves the analysis of vision & mission is still a question), most of the people invest in a company on the basis of tips they receive!
Employees: How many employees would recall their company’s objectives? Not the job hoppers at least! I am sure all the B-School graduates would remember though as they have to mug up the vision & mission of all the companies that come to campus but they forget it as soon as the company leaves!
Creditors: Even in case of creditors, I feel, they would see the financial ability of the firm before dealing with them. They wouldn’t just lend to the companies having a nice vision statement.
Suppliers: Suppliers would obviously look for long term relationship and location advantage while dealing with the companies regardless of its vision.
Government: I don’t think the government would have any problems as long as the company pays its dues (taxes and other payments!) on time.
Society: The society is okay with a company if it has not specified its vision and mission as long as the company carries out some socially responsible activities and contributes towards social welfare.
Customers: Last but not the least, the smartest set of people alive: the customers. When was the last time you heard your friend saying that he didn’t buy a particular pair of jeans for his girl friend as the apparel company didn’t have a good mission!
So where do we stand now? Does a company need vision? Of course it does! I was fortunate enough to have read the book ‘Made in Japan’ (about Akio Morita and Sony) before I wrote this post where he explained the importance of having a goal in life and how that goal gives directions to all your efforts otherwise things go haywire. He mentioned how after Russia became the first country to reach outer space; President Kennedy announced mission to reach moon within ten years. It was that announcement that set the ball rolling and all efforts started being directed towards the accomplishment of that mission or vision whatever one may call it. So vision & mission are important but what is more important is its communication to its stakeholders and sincere efforts on your part to show that you actually mean everything you mention on your flashy site and that you are taking pains to work towards their realization.
Before I end this post, I would like to mention one more thing to confuse you all. Though I have been using Google (arguably the biggest brand) regularly, I had never bothered to know its mission & vision. But while writing this post I decided to find it out. After a lot of search (of course on Google) I came to know that Google doesn’t have a vision, it only has a mission! So now it’s up to you to decide whether vision & mission are necessary or not. Because I am not committing anything!
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