Don’t Forget the Customer in Your Mission Statement

The Vision, the Mission, the Strategy – this is typically the way companies break down their goals for the upcoming years. Whereas the vision statement and the mission statement is expressed often in only one or two sentences, the strategy to achieve these goals is much more complex and often hidden behind a curtain of business secrets.

As the vision and mission statement is public and therefore visible to employees, customers and all others, the statements are expressed in a very positive way. In many cases this is also a motivating viewpoint for employees to work for this company. To be (or become) No 1 in the world or in a specific market segment can be a strong incentive for employees. Who doesn’t want to stay on the winning side?

Let’s have a look on the Visions & Missions of the Fortune Global 100 Companies:

As expected, the content and wording of the vision and mission statement for each company is very different, due to the very different markets these companies are operating. Although these companies are very different, many of the statements have one thing in common:

• The Vision statement is an inside (or company centric) view.
• The Mission statement is an outside (or customer centric) view.

Here are three random picked examples from the slide show above:

These are good examples how Vision and Mission statements should be defined. Unfortunately, many companies listed in the slide show above don’t mention the customer in their Mission statement at all. From my point of view and as a customer of many of these companies, this doesn’t provides a comfortable feeling being not in the focus of their Mission. So, don’t forget the customer in your Mission statement.