UNIT-I

S. No Particulars
1 Introduction
2 Concepts in Strategic Management – What is Strategy?
3 Concepts in Strategic Management – Levels of Strategy
4 Strategic Management as a process
5 Developing a strategic vision, Mission, Objectives, Policies
6 Factors that shape a company’s strategy
7 Crafting a strategy
8 Industry and Competitive Analysis

Unit Objectives:

After reading this Unit, you should be able to understand:

To understand the concepts of strategy and strategic management

To know the process of strategic management process

To know how to develop strategic vision, mission, objectives and policies

To understand crafting of strategy

To understand industrial and competition analysis

Unit Outcomes:

- List out factors that shape a company’s strategy

- Give an outline of industrial and competition analysis

- Explain why crafting a strategy is complex?

- Describe the strategy management process

- Elucidate development of strategic mission, vision objectives and policies

Introduction to strategic management

Strategic Management is exciting and challenging. It makes fundamental decisions about the future
direction of a firm – its purpose, its resources and how it interacts with the environment in which
it operates. Every aspect of the organization plays a role in strategy – its people, its finances, its
production methods, its customers and so on. Strategic Management can be described as the
identification of the purpose of the organization and the plans and actions to achieve that purpose.
It is that set of managerial decisions and actions that determine the long-term performance of a
business enterprise. It involves formulating and implementing strategies that will help in aligning
the organization and its environment to achieve organizational goals. Strategic management does
not replace the traditional management activities such as planning, organizing, leading or
controlling. Rather, it integrates them into a broader context taking into account the external
environment and internal capabilities and the organization’s overall purpose and direction. Thus,
strategic management involves those management processes in organizations through which future
impact of change is determined and current decisions are taken to reach a desired future. In short,
strategic management is about envisioning the future and realizing it.

We have so far discussed the concepts of strategic thinking, strategic decision-making and strategic
approach which, it is hoped, will serve as a background understand the nature of strategic
management. However, to get an understanding of what goes on in strategic management, it is
useful to begin with definitions of strategic management. Later in the unit, we introduce the
elements and the process of strategic management and the importance, benefits and limitations of
strategic management. As already mentioned, the concepts in strategic management have been
developed by a number of authors like Alfred Chandler, Kenneth Andrews, Igor Ansoff, William
Glueck, Henry Mintzberg, Michael E. Porter, Peter Drucker and a host of others. There are
therefore several definitions of strategic management.

What is Strategic Management ?

Strategic Management

A Strategy is an Action Plan designed It is art of getting things done by others

to achieve the basic objectives of a through Optimum Utilization of Scarce
Business Resources

Strategic management is the strategic use of a

business’s Scarce resources to reach company goals and
objectives.
Important Definitions of Strategic Management

1. “Strategic management is concerned with the determination of the basic long-term goals
and the objectives of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and allocation of
resources necessary for carrying out these goals”. – Alfred Chandler, 1962 2.
2. “Strategic management is a stream of decisions and actions which lead to the development
of an effective strategy or strategies to help achieve corporate objectives”. – Glueck and
Jauch, 1984
3. “Strategic management is a process of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-
functional decisions that enable an organisation to achieve its objective”. – Fed R David,
1997. “
4. Strategic management is the set of decisions and actions resulting in the formulation and
implementation of plans designed to achieve a company’s objectives.” – Pearce and
Robinson, 1988.
5. “Strategic management includes understanding the strategic position of an organisation,
making strategic choices for the future and turning strategy into action.” – Johnson and
Sholes, 2002. “
6. Strategic management consists of the analysis, decisions, and actions an organisation
undertakes in order to create and sustain competitive advantages.” – Dess, Lumpkin &
Taylor, 2005

Analysis of Definitions of Strategy

The analysis of various definitions of strategy presents the following points:
1 Strategy is a central understanding of the strategic management process.
2 Strategy is the determination of basic long-term goals and objectives of an organisation.

3 It helps in determining the courses of action to attain the predetermined goals and
objectives.

4 It points to allocation of necessary resources for implementing the course of action.

5 It develops the company from its present position to the desired future position.
6 It is a set of decision-making rules having a common thread.
7 It sets a clear direction.
8 It is a course of unified actions either planned and/or emerged.
9 Enterprise knows its strengths and weaknesses compared with those of its competitors.
10 Enterprise devotes its hard-won resources to projects that employ its set of core
competencies, the primary skills within the organisation.

11 Identifies factors in the political and social environment that requires careful monitoring.
12 Recognizes which competitor's actions need critical attention.
13 The competitive firm should have a rational, clear-headed notion, purged of wishful
thinking of (i) its mission (ii) its external competitive environment (for analysing
opportunities and threats) and •(iii) its internal capabilities (including strengths and
weaknesses). Now, we turn our discussion to the dimensions of the strategy. criteria for
effective strategy, forms and kinds of strategies.

This definition consists of three basic elements:

l. Determination of long-term goals
2. Adoption of courses of action
3. Allocation of resources to achieve those goals
Lecture 2

What is strategy?

Strategy”, narrowly defined, means “the art of the general” (the Greek stratos, meaning
‘field, spread out as in ‘structure’; and agos, meaning ‘leader’). The term first gained currency
at the end of the 18th century, and had to do with stratagems by which a general sought to
deceive an enemy, with plans the general made for a campaign, and with the way the general
moved and disposed his forces in war. Also was the first to focus on the fact that strategy of war
was a means to enforce policy and not an end in itself. Strategy is a set of key decisions made
to meet objectives. A strategy of a business organization is a comprehensive master plan stating
how the organization will achieve its mission and objectives.

Chandler(1962)Strategy is the determinator of the basic long-term goals of an enterprise, and the
adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these
goals;

Mintzberg (1979) Strategy is a mediating force between the organization and its environment:
consistent patterns in streams of organizational decisions to deal with the environment.

Prahlad (1993) Strategy is more then just fit and allocation of resources. It is stretch and
leveraging of resources

Porter (1996) Strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of
activities to deliver a unique mix of value

Mintzberg has identified the 5 P’s of strategy. Strategy could be a plan, a pattern, a position, a
ploy, or a perspective.
 1. A plan, a “how do I get there”
2. A pattern, in consistent actions over time
3. A position that is, it reflects the decision of the firm to offer particular products or services
in particular markets.
4. A ploy, a maneuver intended to outwit a competitor
5. A perspective that is, a vision and direction, a view of what the company or organization
is to become.

Criteria for Effective Strategy

Although each strategic situation is unique, there are some common criteria that tend to explain
an effective strategy, Criteria for effective strategy include:
1. Clear, decisive objectives: All efforts should be directed towards clearly understood,
decisive and attainable overall goals, All goals need not be written down or be
chronologically precise but they must bo understood and be decisive.
2. Maintaining the Initiative: The strategy preserves freedom of action and enhances
commitment. It sets the pace and determines the course of events rather than reacting to
them.
3. Concentration: The strategy concentrates superior power at the place and time likely to be
decisive. The strategy must define precisely what will make the enterprise superior in
power, best in critical dimensions in relation to its competitors. A distinctive competency
yields gréater success with fewer resources.
4. Flexibility: The strategy must purposely have built in resources, buffers and dimensions
for flexibility and maneuvers. Reserved capabilities, planned maneuverability and
repositioning allows one to use minimum resource while keeping competitors at a relative
disadvantage.
5. Coordinated and committed leadership: The strategy should provide responsible,
committed leadership for each of its major goals. Care should be taken in selecting the
leaders in such a way that their own interests and values match with the requirements of
their roles. Commitment and not mere acceptance is the basic requirement.
6. Surprise: The strategy should make use of speed, secrecy and intelligence to attack exposed
or unprepared competitors at an unexpected time. Thus, surprise and correct time are very
important.
7. Security: The organisation should secure or develop resources required, securely maintain
all vital operating points for the enterprise, an effective intelligence system to prevent the
effects of surprises by the competitors.

Need for Strategy

It is beyond doubt to state that every organisation necessarily formulate strategies.
T
o specifically, strategy is necessary in view of the following reasons:
1. To have rules to guide the search for new opportunities both inside and outside the
firm.
2. To take high quality project decisions.
 3. To develop measures to judge whether a particular opportunity is a rare one or whether
much better ones are likely to develop in the future.

4. To have an assurance that the firm's overall resource allocation pattern is efficient.
5. To have and develop internal ability to anticipate change.
6. To save time, money and executive talent.
7. To identify, develop and exploit potential opportunities.
8. To utilize the delay principle, that is, delay the commitment until an opportunity is on hand
Key Areas in Developing a Strategy
1. The type of goods and/or services that the firm will produce and will sell.
2. The mode of producing goods and rendering services.
3. Who are and will be the firm's customers?
4. The methods of financing the various operations of the firm.
5. The amount of risk that the firm will take.
6. Methods of implementing the strategy.

What is Strategic management?

Strategic management is the set of managerial decision and action that determines the
long-run performance of a corporation. It includes environmental scanning (both external and
internal), strategy formulation (strategic or long range planning), strategy implementation, and
evaluation and control. The study of strategic management therefore emphasizes the
monitoringand evaluating of external opportunities and threats in lights of a corporation’s strengths
and weaknesses
Strategic Management can be defined as the art & science of formulating, implementing, and
evaluating, cross-functional decisions that enable an organisation to achieve its objectives.
Strategic management is different in nature from other aspects of management. An individual
manager is most often required to deal with problems of operational nature. He generally focuses
on day-to-day problems such as the efficient production of goods, the management of a sales force,
the monitoring of financial performance or the design of some new system that will improve the
level of customer service.
Strategic management involves elements geared toward a firm's long term survival and
achievement of management goals. The components of the content of a strategy making process
include a desirable future, resource allocation, management of the firm-environment and a
competitive business ethics. However, some conflicts may result in defining the content of strategy
such as differences in interaction patterns among associates, inadequacy of available resources and
conflicts between the firm's objectives and its environment

Definitions of Strategic Management

Strategic management is concerned with deciding on strategy and planning how that strategy
is to be put into effect." It can be thought of as having these elements within it, viz., strategic
analysis, strategic choice and strategic implementation. Strategic choice is to do with
formulation of possible course of action. Strategic implementation is concerned with planning
how the choice of strategy can be implemented.

According to Samuel C. Certo and J. Paul peter, "Strategic management is a continuous,

interative, cross-functional process aimed at keeping an organisation as a whole appropriately
matched to its environment." A series of steps that a manager must také are identified by this
definition. These steps include performing an environmental analysis, establishing
organizational direction, formulating organizational strategy, implementing organizational
strategy and exercising strategic control.
Schellenberger and Bosenan define the term strategic management as, "the
continuous process of effectively relating the organization’s objectives and resources to
the opportunities in the environment." or, "strategic management is primarily concerned
with relating the organization to its environment, formulating strategies to adapt to the
environment and assuring tiat implementation of strategies taken place."

Analysis of the Definitions of Strategic Management

The study of the above-mentioned definitions of strategic management presents the following
analysis:

(i) Strategic management is a continuous process but that does not mean that the
organisation never finishes its strategic work. Managers will always be focusing
or reflecting on some aspect of strategic management, though different aspects
of strategic management require different emphasis and effort of varying
intensity at different times.

(ii) Though the process of strategic management starts-with the step of performing
an environmental analysis, and moves on to strategic control, it comes back as
environmental analysis. Thus, strategic management consists of a series of steps
repeated cyclically.
(iii) Various activities of strategic management draw the inputs from various
functional areas of management. Thus, strategic management process integrates
 human resources with marketing, production/operations and finance. All these
functional areas of management, in a comprehensive effort. contribute
simultaneously to create an effective plan or output. Thus, the cross-functional
team members work together and the organization will enjoy the benefits of
synergy. The members can visualise the overall position of where the firm is
and what it needs to do in the future in order to achieve a sustainable competitive
advantage. This process will encourage commitment of key executives to
strategic plan.
(iv) Strategic management identifies its purpose as ensuring that an organization as a whole
appropriately matches its ever-changing environment. Organizations must modify
their strategies in accordance with the changes in its environment. For example,
announcement of new economic policy by the Government of India in 1991 shook
the environment and consequently most of the business firms modified their
strategies. Similarly, the recent recession after 2008 also influenced business
organizations to modify their strategies in the direction of reducing operations
resulting in job cuts.
Need for Strategic Management

Exhibit 1.2: Reasons for and Reactions to the Value of Strategic Management

Pros Cons

1. Strategic management allows firms to anticipate
conditions.
2. Strategic management provides clear objectives
md for employees.
3. Research in strategic management is advancing
so that the process can help managers.
4. Business which perform strategic management
are more effective.
1. Conditions change so fast, managers can't do
any planning, especially long-term planning.
2. Objectives must often be vague and general.
3. Managers pay little attention to research. and
studies are not well done.
4. There are many reasons tor success, and many
firms are effective without formal planning.

5. Environment is not static. It is more dynamic and 5. Environmental dynamism can't be assessed.
global environment also affects most of the firms.
Strategic management helps in understanding
environment and formulate strategy to suit to the
environmental dynamism.
Source: Adapted from Lawrence R. Jauch and William F. Gluock, "Business Policy and Strategic
Management," McGraw-Hill Book Company, Now York, p, 18.

1. Due to Change: Everything, except change is not permanent. It does mean that only
change is permanent. Change makes planning difficult. But, firms may pro-act to the change rather
than just react to it. Strategic management encourages the top executives to forecast change and
provides direction and control. It will also allow the firm to take advantage of the opportunities
provided by the changes in the environment and avoid the threats or reduce the risk as the future
is anticipated. Thus, strategic management allows an enterprise to base its decisions on long-range
forecasts.

2. To Provide Guidelines: Strategic management provides guidelines to the employer

about the organisation's expectations from them. This would minimise conflict between job
performance and job demands. Thus, it provides incentive for employer and helps the organisation
in achieving its objectives.

3. Developed Field of Study by Research: Strategic management was just based on

case studies or anecdotal evidence 30 years ago. But recently, there are methodological problem
researches in this field of study. More systematic knowledge in this area is available at present.
Therefore, today it is worthwhile to study strategic management.
4. Probability for Better Performance: There is no clear research evidence that
strategic management leads to nigher performance. But the majority of studies suggest that there
is a relationship between better performance and formal planning. It is also stated that businesses
which plan strategically have a higher probability of success than those which do not have.
5. Systematise Business Decisions: Strategic management provides data and
information about different business transactions to managers and helps them to make decisions
systematically.
6. Improves Communication: Strategic management provides effective
communication of information from lower level managers to middle level managers and to top
level managers.

7. Improves Coordination: Strategic management improves coordination not only

among the functional areas of management, but also among individual projects.

8. Improves Allocation of Resources: Strategic planning helps in deciding upon most

feasible and viable projects and thereby improves the allocation of resources to the viable projects.

9. Helps the Managers to have a Holistic Approach: Strategic management helps the
managers to have complete understanding of the company and to have a holistic approach towards
business problems and proportions.

Benefits of Strategic Management

Several corporations and institutions have been using strategic management. Organizations
reap several benefits from effective strategic management. The benefits of strategic management
include:
1 Strategic management helps an organization to be proactive rather than reactive in shaping
its future.
2 It helps organizations not only to respond to its relevant environment, but also to initiate
and influence its environment and thereby exert control over its destiny.
3 It helps organizations to make effective strategies through the use of a more systematic,
logical and rational approach to strategic choice.
4 It helps the organizations to achieve understanding and commitment from all managers
and employers. Managers and employers become creative and innovative when they
 understand and commit to the company's strategic management. This process results in
employee empowerment. Empowerment is the act of strengthening an individual's sense
of effectiveness.
5 It encourages the organizations to decentralize the management process involving lower
level managers and employees.
6 A significant number of research studies have suggested that a well-designed strategic
management can boost profits.
7 A number of research studies have also indicated that systematic long-run planning
resulted in high performance of the businesses.
8 It strengthens the employee commitment to and participation in formulating long-term
goals.
9 Organizations foresee the environmental changes. Therefore, they reduce the chance of
being affected by the changes in the environment, marketplace and actions of competitors.
10 It helps for increased employee productivity, reduced resistance to change, clear
understanding of performance-reward relationship.
11 It enhances problem-prevention capabilities of organizations as it promotes interaction
among managers at all levels.
12 It often brings order and discipline to a firm.
13 It allows for identification, prioritization and exploitation of opportunities.
14 It provides an objective view of management problems.
15 It represents a framework for improved control of activities.
16 It minimizes the effects of adverse conditions and changes.
17 It allows major decisions and supports established objectives.
18 It allows fewer resources and less time to be devoted for correcting erroneous or adhoc
decisions.
19 It helps to integrate the behaviovr of individuals into a total effort.
20 It provides a basis for the clarification of individual responsibilities.
21 It gives encouragement to forward thinking.
22 It provides cooperative, integrated and enthusiastic approach to tackling problems and
opportunities.
23 It encourages favourable attitude towards change.
24 It gives a degree of discipline and formality to the management of business.
Lecture 3: Levels of Strategy

Corporate-level Strategies: Corporate

level strategies link the opportunities,
strengths/ competencies to the company's
overall objective and goal. These strategies
include expansion, diversification, mer ers
•oint ventures, takeovers, verti into a new
market and/or foreign country. orpora e eve!
strategies affect t e strategies and operations
of all business units and functional level
units.
Global Strategies: Global strategies
include a decision to enter foreign markets.
This strategy includes which countries to
enter and the mode of entry. Global strategy
is based on tie corporate strategy.
Business level strategies: Business
level strategies encompasses two or more
functional units in crafting and implementing a strategy, for example, cost leadership strategy
encompasses the integrated contribution of all functional areas. Other business level Strategies
include differentiation, niche market, total quality and fast delivery.
Functional Level Strategies: These strategies are more or less related to each function like
production/operations, marketing, finance, human resource, information managemen and research
and development. These are the ultimate strategies which are linked to corporate and business level
Strategies.

Operational level strategy refers to the means the companies use to accomplish overall
objectives. Through the development of operational strategies, the firm can evaluate and
implement efficient systems for the use of resources and personnel. Without a stable operations
strategy, companies may not be able to keep up with the changing markets and could start to lose
to trendier competitors.One appropriate operational level strategy example was when Amazon
began to use drones for delivery. It was a change from its traditional brick-and-mortar approach
coupled with physical deliveries.

To be effective, all parts of the company have to work together. Under the operations level
strategy, each department has to contribute to the mission statement and administer strategies
which underlie the overall business strategy.
Lecture 4: Strategic management process

Strategic management is a continuous process

1. Appraises the business and industries

2. Appraises it’s competitors
3. Fixes goals to meet all the present and future competitor’s
4. Reassesses each strategy

BASIC MODEL OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Environmental Scanning

Strategy Formulation

Strategy Implementation

Evaluation and Control

The basic steps in strategic management process are:

1 Identify corporate vision, mission, objectives and goals.
2 Analyse the corporate external environment to identify opportunities and threats.
3 Scan the corporate internal environment to identify strengths and weaknesses of the
company.
4 Revise the corporate mission, if there is any drastic deviation in the external environment.
5 Craft the strategic alternatives based mostly on the corporate opportunities and strengths.
Also consider strategies for correcting company’s weaknesses, when the opportunities are
 significant and distinct. Similarly consider crafting strategies by correcting the threats, as
and when possible, and when the company has distinctive strengths or competencies.
6 Select the best corporate strategy. Craft business unit level and functional level strategies
based on corporate strategy.
7 Implement the strategy.
8 Evaluate and control the strategic implementation process in order to achieve the best
performance.

External Strategic
environment Alternatives and
analysis choices
• Opportuni 1 Corporate level
C
strategy
U
R 2 Global strategy
R
Corporate Revise Mission, 3 Business Strategy
E
objectives and N 4 Functional strategy
• Vision T
goals if necessary
• Mission
• Objectives S
W Strategy
O
Implementation
T
Internal
Environment
Analysis
Strategy review, Evaluation
• Strengths and Control

Developing an organisational strategy involves four main elements – strategic analysis, strategic
choice, strategy implementation and strategy evaluation and control. Each of these contains further
steps, corresponding to a series of decisions and actions, that form the basis of strategic
management process.

1. Strategic Analysis (Environmental Scanning): The foundation of strategy is a definition of

organizational purpose. This defines the business of an organization and what type of organization
it wants to be. Many organizations develop broad statements of purpose, in the form of vision and
mission statements. These form the spring – boards for the development of more specific
objectives and the choice of strategies to achieve them. Environmental analysis – assessing both
the external and internal environments is the next step in the strategy process. Managers need to
assess the opportunities and threats of the external environment in the light of the organization’s
strengths and weaknesses keeping in view the expectations of the stakeholders. This analysis
allows the organization to set more specific goals or objectives which might specify where people
are expected to focus their efforts. With a more specific set of objectives in hand, managers can
then plan how to achieve them.
Organizations analyze the external environmental factors and identify the opportunities and threats
based on the company's current products, services systems and practices
Internal Environment Analysis (or Strengths and Weaknesses): Internal environment consists of
structures, resources, values, competencies, cultures, and systems of a company. Internal
environmental analysis helps to identify company's strengths and weaknesses in relation to the
market, customer needs and all other external environmental factors.
Internal environmental factors include organization structure, finance, marketing.
production/operations, human resources, information management and research and development
capabilities of a company in terms of markets.

2. Strategic Choice: The analysis stage provides the basis for strategic choice. It allows managers
to consider what the organization could do given the mission, environment and capabilities – a
choice which also reflects the values of managers and other stakeholders. (Dobson et al. 2004).
These choices are about the overall scope and direction of the business. Since managers usually
face several strategic options, they often need to analyze these in terms of their feasibility,
suitability and acceptability before finally deciding on their direction.

3. Strategy Implementation: Implementation depends on ensuring that the organization has a

suitable structure, the right resources and competencies (skills, finance, technology etc.), right
leadership and culture. Strategy implementation depends on operational factors being put into
place.

4. Strategy Evaluation and Control: Organizations set up appropriate monitoring and control
systems, develop standards and targets to judge performance
Lecture 5: Developing VISION STATEMENT

Vision statement provides direction and inspiration for organizational goal setting.
Vision is where you see your self at the end of the horizon OR milestone therein. It is a single
statement dream OR aspiration. Typically a vision has the flavors of 'Being Most admired',
'Among the top league', 'Being known for innovation', 'being largest and greatest' and so on.
Typically 'most profitable', 'Cheapest' etc. don’t figure in vision statement. Unlike goals, vision is
not SMART. It does not have mathematics OR timelines attached to it.
Vision is a symbol, and a cause to which we want to bond the stakeholders, (mostly employees
and sometime share-holders). As they say, the people work best, when they are working for a
cause, than for a goal. Vision provides them that cause.
Vision is long-term statement and typically generic & grand. Therefore a vision statement does
not change unless the company is getting into a totally different kind of business.
Vision should never carry the 'how' part . For example ' To be the most admired brand in
Aviation Industry' is a fine vision statement, which can be spoiled by extending it to' To be the
most admired brand in the Aviation Industry by providing world-class in-flight services'. The
reason for not including 'how' is that 'how' may keep on changing with time.
Challenges related to Vision Statement:
Putting-up a vision is not a challenge. The problem is to make employees engaged with it. Many
a time, terms like vision, mission and strategy become more a subject of scorn than being looked
up-to. This is primarily because leaders may not be able to make a connect between the
vision/mission and people’s every day work. Too often, employees see a gap between the vision,
mission and their goals & priorities. Even if there is a valid/tactical reason for this mis-match, it is
not explained.
Horizon of Vision:
Vision should be the horizon of 5-10 years. If it is less than that, it becomes tactical. If it is of a
horizon of 20+ years (say), it becomes difficult for the strategy to relate to the vision.
Features of a good vision statement:
• Easy to read and understand.
• Compact and crisp to leave something to people’s imagination.
• Gives the destination and not the road-map.
• Is meaningful and not too open ended and far-fetched.
 • Excite people and make them get goose-bumps.
• Provides a motivating force, even in hard times.
• Is perceived as achievable and at the same time is challenging and compelling, stretching
us beyond what is comfortable.
Vision is a dream/aspiration, fine-tuned to reality:
The Entire process starting from Vision down to the business objectives, is highly iterative. The
question is from where should we start. We strongly recommend that vision and mission statement
should be made first without being colored by constraints, capabilities and environment. This can
said akin to the vision of armed forces, that’s 'Safe and Secure country from external threats'. This
vision is a non-negotiable and it drives the organization to find ways and means to achieve their
vision, by overcoming constraints on capabilities and resources. Vision should be a stake in the
ground, a position, a dream, which should be prudent, but should be non-negotiable barring few
rare circumstances.
Examples of vision statement:

“To be Earth’s most

Customer Centric Company
where the customers can find
and discover anything they
might want to Buy Online"

“To help individual and business realize their full

potential"

Types of Vision Statement

Quantitative
Superlative
Checklist for Vision
1. 5+ Years
2. Future Tense
3. Directional
4. Audacious
5. Descriptive
Lecture 5: Developing MISSION STATEMENT

Mission of an organization is the purpose for which the organization is. Mission is again a single
statement, and carries the statement in verb. Mission in one way is the road to achieve the vision.
For example, for a luxury products company, the vision could be 'To be among most admired
luxury brands in the world' and mission could be 'To add style to the lives'

A good mission statement will be :

• Clear and Crisp: Mission should only provide what, and not 'how and when'. We would
prefer the mission of 'Making People meet their career' to 'Making people meet their career
through effective career counseling and education'. A mission statement without 'how &
when' element leaves a creative space with the organization to enable them take-up wider
strategic choices.
• Have to have a very visible linkage to the business goals and strategy: For example, you
cannot have a mission (for a home furnishing company) of 'Bringing Style to People’s lives'
while your strategy asks for mass product and selling. Its better that either you start selling
high-end products to high value customers, OR change your mission statement to 'Help
people build homes'.
• Should not be same as the mission of a competing organization. It should touch upon
how its purpose it unique.

Mission follows the Vision:

The Entire process starting from Vision down to the business objectives, is highly iterative. The
purpose of the organization could change to achieve their vision.
For example, to achieve the vision of an Insurance company 'To be the most trusted Insurance
Company', the mission could be first 'making people financially secure' as their emphasis is on
Traditional Insurance product. At a later stage the company can make its mission as 'Making
money work for the people' when they also include the non-traditional unit linked investment
products.
Therefore, Mission statement is a formal summary of the aims and values of a company which
defines the scope of business operations of a firm that distinguishes it from similar firms.
Examples of Mission statement:

“We strive to offer our customers the

lowest possible prices, The Best
available selection and the Utmost
convenience”

“To Bring inspiration and

innovation for every athlete in the
world”
Question for Mission Statement:
“Why Do We Exist?”

Checklist for Mission

1. Original
2. Foundational
3. Staff Connection
4. Memorable
5. T-Shirt