Corporate aims, missions and goals

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Corporate aims,missions and goals
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Corporate aims

• Express the long-term intention of the
  organisation to develop in a certain way.
• Everyone in the organisation should work towards
  achieving a common vision
• Help build team spirit, encourage commitment
• Example McDonalds provide friendly service in a
  relaxed, safe and consistent restaurant
  environment
• Small companies do not write down their aims

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Corporate aims

• Whether stated or unstated corporate aims act
  as a basis upon which to form goals or objectives
  for the organisation ? allows delegation

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Mission statement

• a qualitative statement of the organisation aims
  intended to motivate within the firm and to
  convince those outside it of the companys
  commitment
• attempt to put corporate aims into words
• should identify positive characteristics such as
  creativity and quality rather than maximising
  profit

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The mission model

• Purpose
• Values
• Standards and behaviour
• Strategy
• Are interdependent
• E.g. Unilever raise the quality of life
• Coca-Cola our mission is to get more people
  drink Coke than water

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Purpose

• Identification for employées work.
• Mission statement identifies several stakeholders
  in whose interests the business is said to be run

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Values

• The values reflect the beliefs among the
  employées. This unwritten code is called culture
  of business ?
• Mission statement provides an opportunity to
  shape this business culture
• Set of values which employees can feel proud of
  motivates them to work towards the organisations
  objective
• Difficult in large companies where each
  department has its own culture no dominant
  corporate culture

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Sources of business culture

• Company routines everyday decisions
• Formal controls organisation structure
  (vertically by functions, horizontally by layers
  of hierarchy)
• Peer structure interrelationships between
  individuals and groups
• Symbols language, signs of status
• Rituals and myths behaviour, stories from the
  past

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Attitudes and business culture

• Body shop soft, less profit-focused culture ?
  more socially based (opposite shareholder)

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Approach to key issues

• Attitude towards risk entrepreneurial risk
  averse
• Reward distribution them and us fat cats
• Teamwork
• Equity more based in small firms (Nissan plant
  in Sunderland)

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Types of business culture

• Power culture pleasing the boss
• Role culture power depends on the position
• Task culture power lies in the expertise
• Person culture within functional departments
  (lawyers, accountants)
• Principal reason for introducing a mission
  statement provide a common purpose amongst
  employées

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Behaviour standard

• IBM all managers should operate an open door
  policy
• Criticism mission statements are only part of a
  PR strategy
• Missing link identify the standars of behaviour
  expected from the employees which symbolise the
  purpose, strategy and values of the organisation

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Developing a mission statement

• If all staff are involved in preparing (and
  agree the outcome) a mission statement, the
  result will be a statement of shared values
• E.g. clothing retailer maximise sales and serve
  the customer in the best way
• E.g. a woman tries on, appears to like, a dress
  which looks ill-fitting at the back, should you
  step in to point this out?
• All staff should answer in the same way. The
  sales-driven staff might say no. The risk of
  losing the sale would be too great.
• Focus on the customer yes ? customer confident
  in the honesty of the staff, will return.

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Length of a mission statement

• Can vary
• 1 page ? single phrase
• Others prepare extensive documents consisting of
  the purpose, strategy and values of the
  organisation in detail
• Statement should be memorable

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Criticism of mission statements

• No purpose than to gain publicity
• Common for quite different companies to have very
  similiar mission statements
• Time and effort could be used more effectively
  elsewhere in the business
• Even when the statement sets out the
  organisations purpose, strategy and values
  firms fail to implement the ideas
• 86 of the organisations have a mission statement