Vision of the company: bright past, glorious future

The only way to win the rivalry is to stop attempts to win. Such a concept is the basis of the successful theory of a blue ocean in the business. The competitors seem to be enemies who fight with each other. The companies wrest a tidbit of the market shares, produce the products or offer similar services with insignificant modifications or lower price. The market is often compared with blood-curdling red ocean with the competitors who fight to the last drop of their blood. One of the most prominent ways that allow to move beyond the destructive fight is to concentrate on unengaged niches and develop the huge potential of the company. That’s why we need to talk about the vision of the business.

What is the vision: how we see the future

Vision of the company is more than the purposes of its executives. It does not deal with the intention to earn certain amount of money. Moreover, it differs from the mission of the business even though these two concepts are sometimes confused.

What’s the difference between the mission and vision

In general, mission shows which place the company is taking currently. The vision deals with the futuristic image of business mentioning the side where you are going to appear tomorrow. While the mission could be expressed generally, the vision should be extremely accurate. For instance, the vision could sound like that: ‘We would like to reach 60% market share in the area’ or ‘We are going to get $2 million of annual turnover’.

The excellent mission will explain which goods and services the company produces, what its target audience is, as well as which the technological and business possibilities are. In its turn, the vision will make an emphasis on the strategy and articulation of a business model which is going to become profitable.

Let’s look at the examples

The vision could change as the needs of the target audience cannot remain the same. For example, Microsoft used to have a vision: ‘Computer in every house, at every desk plus excellent software.’ However, the Internet appeared, and Microsoft got used to new standards. Of course, it improved the vision: ‘Establish new opportunities at any time, in any place, at any gadget with the help of excellent software’.

However, let’s return a bit to the theory. Sometimes young executives understand vision in a wrong way and use it only to define their financial aims. It is crucially important to remember that money can’t inspire employees to a full extent. The vision has to sound ambitious and real simultaneously. For example, the vision of CNN was originated from the idea to become the world leader of news. As we see, this prediction came into action.

Another example of successful vision is Starbucks. Its basic principles include a good working place where all the employees are respected, cultural variety, the highest standards of work with coffee. As well, the satisfaction of client is the highest value what makes possible to contribute into the local community. That’s why the vision of Starbucks is to become the best supplier of coffee in the world and at the same time not break the initial principles mentioned before.

Pearls of vision

To clarify the concept of business vision, we offer to look at several prominent statements:

• As Japanese proverb said, vision without action is a dream but action without vision is the horror
• It is immoral to make people work without purpose. Our duty is to help them find this vision. (Horst Schultze, the president of the hotel network The Ritz-Carlton)
• Our business is renting cars. Our mission is to satisfy the client absolutely. (Avis rent-a-car)
• To live and work together for the public good (this Japanese principle Kyosei became the vision of Canon)
• Connecting people we help to satisfy the fundamental human need in links and social networks. (Nokia)