Adventures in Product Management 1: Mission and Vision
According to HubSpot:
A mission statement is a simple statement about the goals, values, and objectives of an organization. It helps a company respond to change and make decisions that align with its vision.
A vision statement is aspirational and expresses your brand’s plan or “vision” for the future and potential impact on the world. They often serve as a guide for a brand’s future goals and explain why customers and employees should stick around for the long haul.
Companies have vision statements to provide a clear target that can be planned. This allows them to use mission statements as a way of achieving the vision and their overall goal.
In this article I will explore 5 particularly noteworthy vision and mission statements.
1. Nike
Nike, one of the worlds leading sport brands, have 65% share of the worlds trainers market- and so you know they’re going to have an amazing mission and vision statement!
Mission statement: Create groundbreaking sports innovations, make our products sustainably, build a creative and diverse global team, and make a positive impact in communities where we live and work.
Vision statement: Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.
*If you have a body, you are an athlete.
These statements are good because they are not about what they take from customers but what they give to the world. They are a business, and they do exist to make money, however altruism doesn't pay the bills and so its good to see that their mission and vision statements are not Statements to The Board, and rather a Statement to The World.
This goal will always win!
2. Ikea
Everyone, unless you are much more up market than my family, has some of this stuff in their house- in fact they’re the eighth most valuable retailer in the world! With this mission and vision you can see why!
Mission statement: Offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.
Vision statement: To create a better everyday life for the many people.
My first instinct when I read this is, how do you define “wide range” and “prices so low” that make people afford them. This also doesn't feel as aspirational as the Nike statement. The Vision is incredibly well crafted, which allows you to imagine how Ikea’s products, bubble up to create better everyday life for people to make decisions.
3. Ted
If you’ll allow me to interrupt my own Ted talk… actually that's all I have got. Ted are an American media company, formed in 1984, and are famous for their Ted Talks where influential people from across the world share their wisdom.
Mission statement: Spread ideas.
Vision statement: We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world.
The vision makes this sound that they don't currently “believe passionately in the power of ideas” but they hope one day! Which is a pity as this is a great vision to have. The mission is brilliant, short, snappy and elegantly simplistic.
4. Google
If you don’t know who Google is, well, I’ll let you open a new tab and Bing it! A little over 150,000 people work for Google which is one half of an Augsburg, or one whole Ipswich!
Mission statement: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
Google don't have a separate vision and mission statement and so instead they have a single amalgamated statement of intent. It falls into the same sort of trap that Ikea does by not quantifying what it is they want to achieve, leaving it open and vague. On the other hand they are clearly doing well, so what do I know!
5. Amazon
Amazon use roughly three rainforests worth of cardboard a day to sell their tat. This firm worth over 1.4 trillion dollars has taken over the world through clear value proposition.
Mission statement: We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience.
Vision statement: To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.
Amazon is probably the best of the lot, with a mission that is clearly actionable and measurable. You can, also, see exactly how the work Amazon does directly feeds in to their vision statement.
I would argue that the word strive in the mission statement is not very action focused, though that’s a very small nit.
Creating my Own Mission and Vision
I am now going to create my own mission and vision statement for a company that makes football boots. I have chosen this product as I love playing football, and you can’t do this without football boots!
Vision statement: A world where playing football, doesn’t murder penguins.
Mission statement: To build and produce football boots that reduce, reuse, recycle, and people actually want to play in.
How does this work? I decided to go for the wow factor with my vision statement. Hopefully this really shocks the reader, as who wants to kill penguins? My mission statement is very effective and straight to the point. Using reduce, reuse and recycle, I think it shows a clear view of how I achieve my vision statement.